On the contrary, I think that automatic image carousels are exactly user interface with a purpose. They're what happens when the purpose of the website is to be demonstrated to "stakeholders", the people who sign off on the university budget, the people who don't use the internet and just want to get back to running their restaurant, etc.

Normal users would go to the site to use it for the purpose of finding some bit of information; instead, in this case, another person loads it up on their laptop or projector for the stakeholder and talks about "hey, look what we spent your money on". The stakeholder does not actually touch the computer running the web browser.

(...that's my theory, anyway.)