{"id":619868,"date":"2026-04-21T23:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619868\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T23:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:50:12","slug":"n-l-arts-and-tourism-minister-says-she-regrets-posting-image-altered-with-ai-to-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619868\/","title":{"rendered":"N.L. arts and tourism minister says she regrets posting image altered with AI to social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Newfoundland and Labrador\u2019s arts and tourism minister says she regrets posting an image she altered with artificial intelligence to mark National Tourism Week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrea Barbour made a social media post Tuesday with a photo of herself in front of The Rooms in St. John\u2019s alongside statistics related to the economic effect of tourism in the province.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, as commenters pointed out, something wasn\u2019t quite right about the image of the cultural institution.<\/p>\n

The proportions of the building were slightly off, and the iconic caribou was missing. It was instead replaced by a logo that said \u201cthe ROOMS,\u201d accompanied by a blue swish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ABarbour posted this image to her Facebook page Tuesday. People quickly pointed out in the comments that The Rooms does not actually look like it appears here. Barbour later confirmed she used AI to alter the image. (Andrea Barbour\/Facebook)<\/p>\n

Barbour\u2019s Facebook post was met by swift criticism online and in the House of Assembly, where Liberal Gander MHA Bettina Ford accused the minister of using AI to alter an image.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not sure what she\u2019s talking about,\u201d Barbour said in response.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She gave a similar answer when Ford elaborated, arguing that the altered image removed a piece of art that N.L. holds dear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The caribou silhouette visible outside The Rooms represents Newfoundland\u2019s role in the First World War \u2014 particularly the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel in 1916. Members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment wore a caribou head on their badges during the war.<\/p>\n

Caribou sculptures are also scattered across Europe to memorialize the sites the Royal Newfoundland Regiment traversed more than 100 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat symbol means a lot to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. So I was really shocked to be honest,\u201d Ford told reporters Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The caribou silhouette is seen at the museum’s entrance in this file photo. (Wendy Rose)<\/p>\n

Barbour later confirmed to reporters she used AI for the post. She explained she was in a rush to acknowledge National Tourism Week, and put a real image of herself in front of The Rooms through ChatGPT along with some statistics to create a graphic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t really know a lot about AI, to tell you the truth. It was something that I just used to combine two photos,\u2019 Barbour said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see what happened there and I regret putting that photo up. And I feel really bad, being an artist myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbour has deleted the altered photo of The Rooms. She created a new post with the original image including the statistics graphic.<\/p>\n

The province\u2019s Liberal party was quick to take to social media, posting a side-by-side image of Barbour\u2019s Rooms photos so followers can \u201cspot the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Download our\u00a0free CBC News app<\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-619868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}