Apple shelves misleading AI news alert feature
Gaffe-prone news notification system is offline for now
Apple has shelved its AI feature that was generating false news alerts on iPhones.
The feature, powered by the tech giant’s Apple Intelligence system and launched in beta in December, produced inaccurate summaries of some news stories, leading to complaints by media outlets from which the alerts appeared to originate.
The BBC complained after an AI-generated summary of one of its news stories falsely told readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself. The news feature also told users that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship before the match had begun, and that Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.
Several media outlets including Sky News and the New York Times said their stories had also been misrepresented.
Non-profit journalism organisation Reporters Without Borders accused Apple of inadvertently spreading misinformation, saying “This accident highlights the inability of AI systems to systematically publish quality information, even when it is based on journalistic sources.”
Earlier this month Apple said it would update its AI news notification feature, promising “a software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarisation provided by Apple Intelligence.”
However, the company has now decided to take it offline.
"With the latest beta software releases of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3, Notification summaries for the News & Entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable," an Apple spokesperson said, as reported by the BBC.
On other platforms, AI-generated alerts will be formatted in italics.
The BBC, which had criticised Apple for being slow to respond to its initial complaint, welcomed the move. "We're pleased that Apple has listened to our concerns and is pausing the summarisation feature for news," a spokesperson said.
"We look forward to working with them constructively on next steps. Our priority is the accuracy of the news we deliver to audiences which is essential to building and maintaining trust."
Iona Silverman, an IP and media lawyer at law firm Freeths, said: “This shows that AI really is still in its infancy, and that while the technology is constantly improving, we need to take care when using it.
“Apple’s technology could easily have written incorrect defamatory content which would have put them at risk of a very public lawsuit. Additionally, there is a very real risk of AI churning out content that infringes someone else’s intellectual property rights, as AI learns from content that is already out there.
“I have seen images created using innocuous prompts incorporating third party brands, which is an obvious no-no. The takeaway here is that businesses need to think carefully as they evolve their use of AI.”