Janel Comeau managed to trick Google and Meta with just her words.
The Halifax-based writer had penned a satirical article for The Beaverton, a Canadian parody news site. It said that Cape Breton, the island off the northern coast of Nova Scotia, was adopting its own time zone in a cheeky plea for attention from the rest of the Maritimes.
“We are tired of being ignored. And that is why we will be making the incredibly irritating step of moving the entire island to the new Cape Breton Time Zone, where we will be 12 minutes ahead of mainland Nova Scotia, and 18 minutes behind Newfoundland,” Comeau wrote.
But what came next was no joke.
While reviewing her past work, Comeau noticed something odd on Facebook: Meta’s AI-generated prompts were appearing under her article — as if it were real news.
“It was like, ‘Find out more information about when this time zone change will take effect,’ [or] ‘How will this affect businesses?'” she told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
“I realized very quickly: Oh, it’s treating this as a real article.”
Curious, Comeau asked Meta AI directly, and searched on Google with the question of whether Cape Breton would indeed be getting its own time zone. Both said that yes, it would.
“[I felt] in-between, this is very funny and oh no, what have I done?” she said.
Jian-Yun Nie, a professor in the department of computer science at the University of Montreal, says this incident reflects how artificial intelligence and search engines process content, without necessarily evaluating its truthfulness.
And in Google’s case, says Nie, search rankings are driven by a mix of factors: the use of keywords that match a query, how often an article is linked to other content, and its overall popularity — like user clicks.
“So if you ask what is the time zone of Cape Breton and whether there is a new time zone, [Comeau’s] article may appear at some top position,” said Nie.
Nie says AI systems typically scan multiple related articles to synthesize an answer, but that only works well if the sources are correct, and if the system can distinguish between reliable and unreliable information.
Without understanding context — or satire — they can mistake humour for fact.
According to Nie, AI systems primarily assess reliability based on the source of the information — favouring trusted outlets like reputable newspapers over less credible ones.
However, he says there’s no universal standard for determining what’s reliable and what isn’t.
“How do you trust one person and not another [person]?” Nie said as a comparison.
“It is quite difficult to make an algorithm to mimic exactly the same behaviour of human beings, but the algorithms are trying to do the same thing at this stage.”
Since the incident, both Google and Meta have corrected their systems.
At the time of writing, Meta AI now responds: “No, Cape Breton Island does not have its own time zone. It follows Atlantic Standard Time and Atlantic Daylight Time, the same as the rest of Nova Scotia.”
According to Osmar Zaiane, a University of Alberta professor specializing in AI and data mining, that kind of swift correction is standard procedure, and part of the growing pains of emerging technologies.
“Each time they find a hole like this, they try to fix it,” said Zaiane. “You can’t think of all possibilities; there’s always something that some people discover.”
CBC reached out to Google and Meta for comment, but have not yet received a response. Both companies have language in their terms and services disclaiming responsibility for the accuracy of their search or query results.
To avoid being misled, both Zaiane and Nie urge people to cross-check AI-generated answers with multiple sources.
“We should use our own judgment to see whether it can be plausible,” said Nie. “In this case, if Google tells you there is a new time zone in Cape Breton, you [should] check other articles.”
Fortunately, Comeau’s fictional time zone seems to have caused no real confusion or chaos — or at least, none that she has heard of.
“I’ve not heard of from any tourists who’ve missed their ferries as a result of this, but maybe they’re out there,” she said.
“Knowing that somebody may have not gotten to Greco Pizza before it closes — I don’t know, it’s a heavy cross to bear.”
