SINGAPORE — An online advertisement by the Ministry of Finance (MOF), which features an image of a family generated by artificial intelligence (AI), has been lambasted by social media users.

Reddit user "Deliciouswizard" put up a post on Monday (July 29) with a screenshot of a sponsored Instagram advertisement by the ministry.

One caption in the post read: “MOF using AI in their advertisements. Ugly and filled with errors. Can you spot the errors?” 

The image featured a fair-skinned family comprising two adults and two children in the foreground, with a few other people in the background.

Embedded in the image were the lines: “Support for a lower-income couple with two young children” and “Visuals were created using AI tools”.

As of Wednesday morning, the Reddit post had attracted more than 720 upvotes and 300 comments — mostly negative — ranging from criticism of how the image looked like a "scam", or of the use of AI in the first place.

In response to TODAY's queries, MOF said that the ministry uses different visuals to accompany its social media posts to cater to different target audiences. 

The poster was published on its social media channels on July 11.

"We are pilot-testing the use of AI to explore a different set of visuals on top of those done by designers. We have put footnotes on our posts and visuals to maintain transparency on the source of the content.

"We will continue to explore different tools and take in feedback to improve our products in order to better inform fellow Singaporeans about government schemes and services."

'LIKE A SCAM AD'

The top comment on the MOF ad posted on Reddit was by user "Brikandbones", who said that “looks like a scam ad”.

A few other users echoed the same sentiments, saying that AI is “very associated with scam ads”. 

Others took potshots at the digitally created image.

One Reddit user commented that a child in the background looks like a “gremlin”, while the couple had “more teeth than alligators”.

Another user felt that using AI is fine as long as the output is touched up and edited before being posted, adding: “This looks like they just generated it and published without even checking it through, which is more to do with laziness than AI or not.” 

Some people gave credit to MOF for being transparent enough to label the image as AI-generated, while others took aim at the use of AI.

One wrote: “What I take issue with is this mentality (of) ‘Let's use AI to show that we're innovative’, when there is zero need for it.”

Others said it was an “irony” that an ad series calling for support for low-income families was generated without paying models or photographers.

Some argued that there may be a reason for using AI in this situation, with one saying: “Nobody, not even (people who are) paid, wants to be smiling for a poster declaring they are (a) low income family."

However, others said that the ad could have instead made use of stock images, a common practice in the advertising industry.

USER CREATES 'IMPROVED' VERSION

On Tuesday, Reddit user "buwanana" uploaded a series of four images as a response to MOF's ad. The post had garnered more than 540 upvotes and 200 comments as of Wednesday morning.

The versions showed families of different races and the user wrote: “Hi MOF, I created these image for you using AI. It’s not that hard leh!” 

Speaking to TODAY on Tuesday, the Reddit user said that he is a media entrepreneur and did not give his real name or age. He added that he was moved to do so because the ad "was not a good look for us".

"I want Singapore to be at least a regional hub for AI. So I created those images hoping to steer it away from that harmful narrative, to show what AI is actually capable of today."

He also said that in his day job, he has been approached by schools to design AI courses for adult learners. 

He hopes that government agencies also invest in training their staff members since "there’s a ton of potential" to be realised in developing an AI-enabled workforce here.

"It's very important for our workforce to embrace AI," he added.

While some online users nitpicked over how parts of the images still looked odd, others generally agreed that the new series of images was an improvement from the MOF advertisement.

This was not the first time that a government ministry or agency has used AI in its publicity materials, and also not the first time that such moves have been criticised.

A cursory check on MOF’s X account showed numerous posts accompanied by AI-generated images.

Separately, a post by the @govSingapore account on Mothers’ Day this year had used AI-generated pictures of dishes such as chilli crab and kaya toast.

The comments and re-posts that ensued were largely negative.

One read: "Stop using AI when you can even do that with smartphone food photography and support hawkers at the same time."