Juno-award winning musician Ashley MacIsaac has ended his defamation suit against Google over its AI overview falsely labelling him as a sex offender.
Earlier this year, the 51-year-old fiddler had initiated a civil lawsuit with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice after he discovered the AI-generated summary at the top of Google’s search page — known as an AI overview — was asserting he had been convicted of a series of offences, including sexual assault, internet luring and attempting to assault a minor, and that he was on the national sex offender registry — all of which was untrue.
MacIsaac, who originally hails from Cape Breton, was seeking $1.5 million in damages from Google LLC. “If a human spokesperson made these false allegations on Google’s behalf, a significant award of punitive damages would be warranted,” the lawsuit stated. “Google should not have lesser liability because the defamatory statements were published by software that Google created and controls.”
But on July 29, a notice of discontinuance was filed to end MacIsaac’s legal action. MacIsaac has not provided a reason for ending the lawsuit, but told the National Post he had no comment. CBC News has reached out for comment.
Google Canada previously issued a statement in December saying its AI summaries shift frequently to provide the most “helpful” information, and that any mistakes are used to improve the system.
MacIsaac’s now-withdrawn claim lambasted Google for its “cavalier and indifferent response to its publication of utterly false statements,” stating that MacIsaac was owed a clear retraction.
