It was a shocking moment for Cree artist Donita Large.
Last month the Edmonton singer-songwriter found a photo used in an online publication about her new album that was not her; it was AI-generated.
“My whole body just kind of responded with ‘what am I supposed to do with this,” Large told CityNews. “This is not me.
“They published an article without using my photo – and my photo is readily available – and create an image of me. I kind of felt really helpless for a minute, and of course the shock, then the distress turned into ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’”
The image shows what appears to be an Indigenous woman with long black hair and darker skin tone than the artist’s own. Large says the image was not labelled as one generated by artificial intelligence.
CityNews has reviewed the image but has decided not to share it to respect the Large’s request.
“The fact that it’s thrown into a news article changes it to be not only a stereotype that’s created by AI, you then make it a fact. It could have caused me a lot of damage had it continued.”
Large says the image was stereotypical, including a transparent female figure in the background wearing a beaded headpiece and other pan-Indigenous cultural accessories.
“That’s so stereotypical of what we’re supposed to look like or that Indigenous people are only of history when we’re modern people who live in every place,” the musician said.
CityNews reached out to the publisher, Wire Service Canada, to ask about its AI policy, but did not immediately hear back.
Large says when she alerted them, the article was simply taken down and there was no apology.
Katrina Ingram, an expert in AI ethics, says images generated using artificial intelligence should be labelled as such.
“There are lots of ethical choices that we can make, including having policies for acceptable use,” said Ingram, the founder and CEO of Ethically Aligned AI. “And I do suggest to everyone that they have some kind of a guideline of acceptable use for AI so that people can be clear on how they’re supposed to use it, how they’re not supposed to use it within a particular organization.”
Large says she wanted to share her story to raise awareness about the impact of misinformation and media misrepresentation through AI.
“My album is called ‘The Ancestors’ and that alone, to erase me in that story, is highly problematic,” the Cree singer-songwriter said. “To have my image be changed and erased, to me, is also a part of that longer story around that. Indigenous erasure is part of our history.”