Apple Temporarily Ends AI News Summary Feature That Provided Wildly False Information

Apple is “temporarily” disabling its AI-generated summaries of news alerts after users noticed the feature repeatedly generated wildly inaccurate headlines, which sparked concerns that it was spreading misinformation. In a statement to the technology news outlet Mashable, Apple said it is pushing out updates in beta versions of its operating systems that will disable the faulty news summaries for the “News & Entertainment” category. The feature will be disabled when the company pushes the iOS 18.3 update. The company says it is working on fixing the feature. The summary feature was rolled out as part of the new Apple Intelligence feature that is built into the iPhone 16 and available on other models that can run iOS 18.1. The feature was supposed to give users quick and informative summaries of notifications that show up on their lock screen. However, it came under fire as examples of it making up fake headlines surfaced on social media.In December, BBC issued a complaint to Apple after users noted that the summary feature misrepresented one of its news alerts to state that the alleged killer of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Luigi Mangione, shot himself. A spokesman for the BBC said, “It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name, and that includes notification.”There have been several other examples of the feature generating false information. A summary of an alert from the New York Times claimed that Prime Minister Netanyahu had been arrested. The original story was about the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Mr. Netanyahu. The summary also falsely told users that President-elect Trump’s nominee to be secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, had been fired and that two of his other nominees had been confirmed when they were not. The faulty feature drew the ire of news outlets that worried that incorrect news summaries could lead users to believe that the journalistic outlets were publishing misinformation, which could tarnish their reputations and mislead the public. The journalism organization Reporters Without Borders criticized the AI summary feature as it noted it “took less than 48 hours [from the feature’s launch] to demonstrate that its new generative AI tool is incapable of producing reliable information in a consistent, trustworthy manner.”“The probabilistic way in which AI systems operate automatically disqualifies them as a reliable technology for news media that can be used in solutions aimed at the general public,” the group said.Reporters Without Borders called on Apple to “act responsibly” to remove the summary feature. Apple did not respond to a request for comment from The New York Sun.

Apple Temporarily Ends AI News Summary Feature That Provided Wildly False Information

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