Helsingin Sanomat removes AI-altered Instagram image

Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat removed an image from its Instagram account after artificial intelligence changed parts of the picture without the employee’s knowledge, Yle reported.

The image showed three people standing with their backs to the camera outside a building. In the AI-altered version, the shadows had changed, at least one shoe had disappeared from two people, and a structure resembling climbing equipment and a clock on the building wall were missing.

Helsingin Sanomat said in a correction that the carousel had been republished because of an error caused by AI-assisted image editing. The tool had been used to separate subjects in the images from their background.

New feature had been added to the tool

Emma-Leena Ovaskainen, the newspaper’s managing editor responsible for images and design, told Yle that a new feature had been added to the image cutout tool during the summer.

The employee who made the error did not notice the new feature and used the tool believing it worked as before, Ovaskainen said. The error occurred within the social media team.

When AI-assisted tools are used, a person is always responsible for the final result, Ovaskainen said. She added that the newspaper should know about all developments in the AI tools it uses and said she took responsibility for the mistake and apologised for it.

Helsingin Sanomat will continue using the AI tool, but features that can alter the content of an image have been disabled.

Ovaskainen said partial image cutouts had previously been used on Helsingin Sanomat’s social media accounts as a visual effect to direct viewers’ attention to a specific part of an image. The removed image was intended to focus attention on a person’s headwear, but the new AI feature unintentionally changed other elements.

Journalistic images must not be edited, Ovaskainen said, but partial cutouts are permitted as long as the content of the image is not changed.