CEO Miguel Martin said Aurora does not have a relationship with either company mentioned in the articles.BRENDAN MCDERMID/Reuters
An Edmonton-based cannabis company is cleaning up a mess left behind by an investing site that erroneously published AI-written reports of non-existent business deals.
One article posted on the Investing.com website Wednesday morning claimed Aurora Cannabis Inc. ACB-T had acquired New Zealand-based Medleaf Therapeutics in a cash-and-stock deal. The article specified the details of the purchase, quoted Aurora’s chief executive officer and cited a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing as the source of its information.
“To see the first article come out, no truth associated with it, on Investing.com − which really, you know, obviously is not a credible source of information − was concerning,” Aurora chairman and chief executive Miguel Martin said in an interview.
Another article was published on the same website about eight hours later, outlining a purported partnership with a business called MediPharm GmbH, which also cited an SEC filing.
There does not appear to be a company called MediPharm GmbH. However, there is an Austrian-based Meditrade-Medipharm GmbH and a Canadian company called MediPharm Labs, based in Barrie, Ont.
At the bottom of both articles was an italicized disclaimer that they were “generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor.“
But Mr. Martin said the quotes in the articles were not his words, nor did those deals exist.
“It’s just an amazing piece of fiction,” he said.
Mr. Martin said Aurora does not have a relationship with either company mentioned in the articles. Aurora attempted to reach Investing.com and had not received a response as of late Thursday afternoon.
“We’re exploring all options to make sure that there is accountability here and that this never happens again,” Mr. Martin said.
Contra Guys: Pot stocks are getting closer to a buy - but only some
In an e-mailed response to The Globe and Mail later Thursday, a spokesperson for Investing.com said the articles were published because of a “technical issue” and were later removed upon notice. Both articles have been wiped from the website.
The website’s terms and conditions state that while it strives to have accurate and relevant AI-generated content, “we make no representations or warranties of any kind concerning its completeness, accuracy, reliability, or suitability for any specific purpose.”
In an e-mail, John Vincic, a spokesperson for MediPharm Labs, told The Globe that the references to his company in the article were false and “there is no deal between MediPharm and Aurora for distribution in Germany and the EU.”
Aurora published two news releases on Wednesday and Thursday stating that the articles were erroneous. Mr. Martin said he also spoke with employees, investors and other stakeholders to clear the air.
Investing.com later published two articles denying the deals, based on the news releases. One was generated with support from AI and the second was a replica of the Aurora news release, sourcing the company.
Mr. Martin said it’s difficult to determine if the original articles had any material effect on the company’s stock, as they were published the same day it released its annual financial statements.
“This day and age of AI generation, I think this is one of the downsides of it,” Mr. Martin said.
Using AI-generated content to report news is a problem, said Gavin Adamson, a Toronto Metropolitan University journalism professor who teaches business journalism.
“It’s sort of inevitable that if you’re going to ask AI to develop content it’s going to give you errors,” Prof. Adamson said.
He said that in cases like this, that involve a publicly traded company, the content risks affecting investors and the share price.