Alleged defamation: Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac files lawsuit against Google

Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac has launched a civil lawsuit against Google, claiming the online giant defamed him by falsely identifying him as a sex offender in an AI-generated summary.

In December, the Juno Award-winning musician said he learned about the misinformation after a First Nation north of Halifax confronted him with the summary — known as an “AI overview” — then cancelled one of his concerts. The Sipekne’katik First Nation later issued a public apology to MacIsaac.

In a statement of claim filed in February with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, MacIsaac says the summary falsely asserted he had been convicted of a series of offences including sexual assault, internet luring involving a child and assault causing bodily harm.

As well, the summary wrongly stated that MacIsaac had been listed on the national sex offender registry, the lawsuit says.

“As the creator and operator of the AI overview, Google is also liable for injuries and losses arising from the AI overview’s defective design,” the lawsuit says. “Google knew, or ought to have known, that the AI overview was imperfect and could return information that was untrue.”

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None of the claims in the document has been tested in court.

“Google did not admit responsibility for the defamatory statements, or even that they were untrue,” the lawsuit says. “Google did not reach out to MacIsaac. Google did not offer an apology, or make a full and fair retraction.”

On Monday, MacIsaac said that a few days after he learned of the erroneous summary, he felt a deep sense of fear when he took to the stage for a performance.

“I felt that tangible fear from something that was published … by a media company,” he said in an interview. “I feared for my own safety going on stage because of what I was labelled as. And I don’t know how long this will follow me.”

Google Canada issued a statement in December saying its AI summaries are frequently changed to provide the most “helpful” information, and when online content is misinterpreted, those mistakes are used to improve the system.

A spokesperson for Google could not be reached for comment Monday.

In previous interviews, the virtuoso fiddler has said the inaccurate claims were taken from online articles regarding a another man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name.

MacIsaac is seeking $1.5 million in damages from Google LLC.

“Google’s cavalier and indifferent response to its publication of utterly false statements claiming that MacIsaac committed serious sexual offences, including offences involving children, justifies the award of aggravated and/or punitive damages,” the lawsuit says.

“If a human spokesperson made these false allegations on Google’s behalf, a significant award of punitive damages would be warranted. Google should not have lesser liability because the defamatory statements were published by software that Google created and controls.”

MacIsaac said Google must take responsibility for the content its AI overview created.

“This was not a search engine just scanning through things and giving somebody else’s story,” he said, adding that he did not intend to talk to any other news outlets about the case.

“It was published by them. And to me, that is defamation …. The guardrails were not there to prevent Google AI from publishing that content.”