White House use of AI puts words in mouth of U.S. Olympic hockey star

Blame AI or the White House social media employee who put controversial, profane words in the mouth of U.S. Olympic men’s hockey star Brady Tkachuk.

Either way, Tkachuk doesn’t appreciate the doctored video published Sunday on the official White House TikTok account that made it appear he was disparaging Canadians in the aftermath of the stirring U.S. gold medal victory at the Milan-Cortina Olympics.

Tkachuk’s day job, you see, is star player and team captain of the NHL Ottawa Senators.

The video features footage from a year-old news conference, except that Tkachuk’s words are freshened through AI. With U.S. Olympics goal song “Free Bird” playing in the background, Tkachuk was made to say, “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating f—s a lesson.”

The clip included a disclaimer that it used AI-generated media. After it had been viewed by more than 12 million people, Tkachuk indicated the stunt annoyed him.

“Well, it’s clearly fake, because it’s not my voice, not my lips moving,” he said Thursday in Ottawa. “It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying. I would never say that.

“That’s not who I am, so I guess I don’t like that video because that would never come out of my mouth, and I never had that thought.”

In its efforts to celebrate the U.S. victory, the White House has come off as tone deaf to many of the players. Sportsmanship and maturity seem less important than disparaging Canadians.

The U.S. players have made it abundantly clear that they respect their Canadian brethren. Several U.S. players — including Tkachuk— play for NHL teams north of the border.

And the men’s players admire the U.S. Olympics women’s hockey team that also won gold despite their spontaneous laughter at President Trump’s attempt at humor during his congratulatory call.

Trump invited the men’s team to the State of the Union address, saying: “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” adding with a laugh that if he didn’t also invite the women, “I do believe I probably would be impeached.”

It was as if the president was talking to third graders afraid they might get cooties from the girls. Tkachuk explained the wonderful relationship between the men’s and women’s Olympics players while expressing regret at the laughter.

“[We’re] just coming off the ice, and I think it was 15 minutes later, you have the President of the United States calling you,” Tkachuk told reporters Thursday. “You just can’t really believe, you’re still riding the high of being a world champion, and for the President to take the time and call.

“When it comes to the women’s team, one of my favorite memories from the Olympics is after we won and after the women’s team came back from the closing ceremonies, both our teams are just in the dining hall hanging out having fun, just kind of being on top of the world.

“You have two gold medalist teams just hanging out before we’re going back to our respective cities. And it was just great to hear their experience.”