Apple Faces Criticism Over AI-Generated News Headline Summaries

Apple is facing calls to remove its AI notification summary feature after it generated false headlines about high-profile murders, drawing criticism from a major news organization.

Updated to iOS 18.2? Then you may have received this notification (Image credit: BBC News)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is urging Apple to disable the Apple Intelligence notification feature, which was rolled out globally as part of the iOS 18.2 software update last week. The request came after the feature created a misleading headline suggesting that murder suspect Luigi Mangione shot himself in the head, False news wrongly attributed to BBC News.

In fact, Mangione was charged with first-degree murder following the killing of New York State Medicare executive Brian Thompson and remains in maximum security at the Huntington State Correctional Facility in Huntington County, Pennsylvania.

The BBC has confirmed it has lodged a complaint with Apple over the Headlines incident. Since then, RSF debate This type of summary demonstrates that “generative AI services are too immature to provide reliable information to the public.”

Vincent Berthier, head of RSF’s technology and press department, said, “Artificial intelligence is a probability machine, and facts cannot be determined by rolling dice.” He called the automatic generation of false information “a threat to the public’s right to reliable information.”

This is not an isolated incident either. new york times Apple Intelligence reportedly ran into a similar problem when it incorrectly summarized an article about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Create a notification claiming he has been arrested When the original article discusses the ICC arrest warrant.

Apple’s AI feature, designed to reduce notification overload by compressing alerts into brief summaries, is currently available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 models, and select iPads and Macs running the latest OS versions. Aggregation is turned on by default, but users can Disable it manually through device settings.

Apple has not commented on the controversy or said whether it plans to modify or remove the feature.

(via bbc news.)