One of Apple's AI features is attacked by the BBC after it disseminates fake news
One new Apple Intelligence feature on the iPhone uses AI to summarize notifications that users receive. However, this new feature has been criticized by the BBC and Reporters Without Borders have demanded that Apple remove the feature. This all revolves around an article published by BBC News about Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street earlier this month.
Thanks to Apple's Apple Intelligence, the story was one of several news item summarized by AI and grouped together before showing up on iPhone displays. The problem is that when AI summarized the story about Luigi Mangione, it incorrectly said that Mangione had shot himself which was not true. A spokesperson for the BBC said that it had contacted Apple "to raise this concern and fix the problem."
"BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world. It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications."-BBC spokesman
Interestingly, while the AI revised notification was totally incorrect about Mangione shooting himself, the other news stories that AI summarized, which included word about the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria and an update on a police raid on South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's office, were completely correct.
Notification takes BBC story and uses AI to summarize it falsely. | Image credit-BBC
This issue also occurred with a summarized notification articles published in The New York Times last month. Three articles from the newspaper were grouped together in one notification. One part of the notification summarized by AI said "Netanyahu arrested" referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What happened here was that AI incorrectly summarized a news report about an arrest warrant being issued for the prime minister from the International Criminal Court; he was not arrested.
Another notification summary gives incorrect info about Benjamin Netanyahu. | Image credit-@schwanksta.com
Similar to the notification that included the false report about Mamgione, the notification that falsely featured Netanyahu's arrest (which never happened) included two other news events that did take place. This included Jussie Smollet's conviction being overturned, and Matt Gaetz removing himself as a candidate for Attorney General.
Enabling or disabling Notification Summaries. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Apple says that iPhone users might like the AI-generated notification summaries because they help users decide which notifications to tap on so they can dig deeper into a story. It is available on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPhone 16 series models running iOS 18.1 or later. You can tell if a notification was created by AI by looking for the unique summary icon at the beginning of the notification.
To enable or disable the Summarize Notification feature, go to Settings > Notifications. Tapping on Notifications will take you to the Summarize Notifications page where the first toggle will enable or disable the feature.
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