{"id":345117,"date":"2025-12-31T18:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T18:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/345117\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T18:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T18:43:10","slug":"canadian-musicians-show-cancelled-after-ai-wrongly-labels-him-a-sex-offender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/345117\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian musician’s show cancelled after AI wrongly labels him a sex offender"},"content":{"rendered":"

A musician in Canada has had a concert cancelled after he was falsely identified as a sex offender by a Google<\/a>\u00a0AI<\/a>\u00a0overview.<\/p>\n

The Juno Award-winning fiddler, singer and songwriter Ashley MacIsaac had been due to play at the\u00a0Sipekne\u2019katik\u00a0First Nation in Nova Scotia, Canada on December 19, but he said he was informed that the show was called off after\u00a0a Google AI summary wrongly asserted that he had been convicted of a series of offences, including sexual assault.<\/p>\n

The venue\u00a0reportedly saw\u00a0the misinformation online,\u00a0with MacIsaac saying he believes the AI mistook him for a man in Canada with the same name.<\/p>\n

The musician has now told\u00a0The Canadian Press<\/a>\u00a0that he thinks he may have been defamed by the error. \u201cIf a lawyer wants to take this on (for\u00a0free)\u2026I would stand up because I\u2019m not the first and I\u2019m sure I won\u2019t be the last,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are being put into a less secure situation because of a media company \u2013 that\u2019s what defamation is,\u201d he said, adding that he is worried what might have happened had he been trying to enter another country. \u201cI could have been at a border and put in jail. So something has to be figured out as far as what the AI companies are responsible for\u2026and what they can prevent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wendy Manton, a spokesperson for Google Canada, said in a statement that their AI \u201coverviews\u201d\u00a0frequently\u00a0change to show the most \u201chelpful\u201d information. \u201cWhen issues arise \u2013 like if our features misinterpret web content or miss some context \u2013 we use\u00a0those examples to improve our\u00a0systems, and\u00a0may\u00a0take action\u00a0under our policies\u201d.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Sipekne-katik\u00a0First Nation have\u00a0apologised\u00a0to MacIsaac. \u201cWe deeply regret the harm this caused to your reputation and livelihood,\u201d they said. \u201cChief and council value your artistry, contribution to the cultural life of the Maritimes, and your commitment to reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacIsaac has said he is looking forward to rescheduling the\u00a0event, and\u00a0has already been contacted by law\u00a0firms\u00a0interested in taking on the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m telling you, this is not a nice place to be,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sitting outside my grandmother\u2019s going in for Christmas. This isn\u2019t a conversation I want to have today \u2013 \u2018Oh, yeah, somebody called me a sex offender.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A musician in Canada has had a concert cancelled after he was falsely identified as a sex offender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-345117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}