The government of the Northwest Territories paid over $12,000 to promote Mining Week. But an error-riddled “activity booklet” has led to questions from residents about how the government and its contractors use AI.<\/p>\n
Produced by Mining North Works for N.W.T. Mining Week, an annual promotional event for the minerals industry, approximately 22,000 copies were printed to be mailed to N.W.T residents.<\/p>\n
Mining North Works is a \u201cpublic awareness\u201d initiative originally started by the Nunavut and N.W.T Chamber of Mines. It now operates in partnership with the governments of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.<\/p>\n
According to the N.W.T. Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment (ITI), Mining North Works hired N.W.T.-based design and promotional firm Gray Matters to actually make the booklet.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder this arrangement, responsibility for the design and production of the booklet, including decisions related to imagery and the use of tools such as artificial intelligence, rests with contractor hired by Mining North Works, not with the [territorial government],\u201d said Mel Leonard, a spokesperson for ITI, in a written statement.<\/p>\n
The N.W.T. territorial government kicked in $12,860.13 in funding to support Mining Week 2026, on top of the $5,000 they already contribute every two years, alternating with Nunavut. That money went to the production of the activity booklet and other promotional materials.<\/p>\n
Many people who received the booklet were quick to post on social media, speculating it was created with AI.<\/p>\n
According to these posts, multiple characters in the book have either too many or too few fingers, web addresses appear to be a mashup of various government websites, and minerals were labelled incorrectly on periodic tables.<\/p>\n
While these errors could have been the result of human carelessness, some online took them to mean the booklet was \u201cAI slop.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Approximately](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1780187535_26_default.jpg\")
The booklet features multiple characters with a curious number of fingers, among other errors. The Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment said in a statement approximately 22,000 copies of the booklet were printed, and a significant number of those copies were delivered to N.W.T. residents through the mail. (Jessica Davey-Quantick\/CBC North)<\/p>\n
Gray Matters did not respond to requests for comment or confirm AI was used.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless, the reaction is why David Maguire, director of corporate communications with the territorial government, says government policy and practices need to catch up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re all operating in an environment that’s changing,\u201d said Maguire.<\/p>\n
He describes his department as the \u201crules and tools guys,\u201d helping to guide how different departments communicate with the public. His team is responsible for the Visual Identity Program, which dictates everything from what colours and fonts government publications can use, to where the bear in the N.W.T.’s territorial logo can go.<\/p>\n
He said his team has been watching the public discourse closely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we don’t have a hard-set, fast rule, but we do have guidelines for how our staff use [AI],” he said. \u201cThese are primarily targeted at the use of AI within government as we do our work day-to-day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maguire says as use of AI grows, so must government policies governing it. He said AI is being used in the background by many government staffers already, without the public necessarily noticing.<\/p>\n
![\"Potentially](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1780187535_277_default.jpg\")
One error in the booklet is in this image of the periodic table, where the element iron is shown in argon’s position. Mistakes like these are one of the reasons Maguire says there will always be a need for humans in the loop. (Jessica Davey-Quantick\/CBC North)<\/p>\n
When it comes to the use of AI images, he says regulations could build on existing standards already being used for stock images.<\/p>\n
While AI as a tool might be new, the problems aren\u2019t: Maguire says using stock images has always come with risks, like\u00a0 accidentally picking the wrong kind of caribou, or having southern trees in an image meant to be in the North.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he says the AI errors are a clear sign the territorial government is not gearing up to replace Northern artists or staff with an algorithm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need people in the process, 100 per cent,\u201d he said. \u201cThey’re the ones who are going to be making the decisions, be accountable at the end of the day. There will always be that space for humans in the process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What this could mean for subcontractors hired by contractors paid by the government, however, is still up for debate. Leonard said the government was \u201ctaking a close look\u201d at the relationship with Mining North Works.<\/p>\n
Maguire agrees that this is part of a bigger conversation about how public funds are spent and who must follow what rules when it comes to AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AI ‘efficiencies’<\/p>\n
In 2024, the 20th Legislative Assembly released Restoring Balance: A Fiscal Sustainability Strategy that outlines ways the territorial government can balance the books in the face of economic challenges.<\/p>\n
Part of the strategy includes ensuring efficiency in spending and taking a hard look at how the government spends public money.<\/p>\n
This might make AI more attractive \u2014 but Northern artists say the discussion can\u2019t just be about cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a cost to choosing the cheaper option,\u201d said Alison McCreesh, a Northern artist who has worked on many government projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you hire artists or humans or small businesses, they’re also … putting money back into the community,” McCreesh said. “Once you’ve cut enough things off the balance sheet, then that person just can’t be an artist anymore. And then how bleak will our cities be?<\/p>\n
“We’re going to lose a lot if we don’t have creative thinkers and artists and weird things that humans made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government of the Northwest Territories paid over $12,000 to promote Mining Week. But an error-riddled “activity booklet”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-704807","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\/704807","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=704807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}