Apple Intelligence continues to deliver fake news to iPhone users but you can turn this feature off
Last month we told you that the BBC and Reporters Without Borders criticized the Apple Intelligence feature that sprinkles AI magic on your notifications to summarize them. The problem is that in creating these summaries, Apple Intelligence is playing around with something that it shouldn't be messing with in this situation. That would be "the truth." One of the examples we mentioned last month involved an article written by BBC News about Luigi Mangione, the man accused of assassinating United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The story was one of several news items grouped together and summarized by Apple Intelligence. However, the way the story was summarized made it sound as though Mangione had shot himself which was not true. Even though the BBC contacted Apple, this problem continues today. The BBC listed some recent examples showing more AI-summarized notifications that gave iPhone users the wrong story.
News notification incorrectly summarized by AI. Note the circled icon indicating that this is news summarized by Apple Intelligence. | Image credit-BBC
Recently iPhone users read an AI-generated notification stating that darts player Luke Littler won the PDC World Championship before he even played in the finals. Another incorrect news item seen by iPhone users that was based on a news article summarized by AI incorrectly said that Tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.
The summarize notifications feature became available in the UK in December and groups together several notifications sent from the same platform and applies AI to summarize each story. Apple iPhone users can disable the summiarization of notifications by going to Settings > Notifications. Go to Summarize Notifications and toggle off the button.
"It is essential that Apple fixes this problem urgently - as this has happened multiple times. As the most trusted news media organization in the world, it is crucial that audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications."-BBC
The goal of the summarize notifications feature is to make it easier and faster for iPhone users to go through these notifications to see which ones are of interest to the device owner. If a particular story included in a summary piques the interest of an iPhone user, he can tap on the screen to see the original notification for the article without AI summarization. Tapping on that will open the original story as published on the original platform.
Apple iPhone users can disable the notification summaries. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Also complaining about Apple Intelligence's approach to editing these summaries was Reporters Without Borders (also known as RSF). The RSF, echoing the BBC's comment, said, "The automated production of false information attributed to a media outlet is a blow to the outlet's credibility." Last month Vincent Berthier, the head of RSF's technology and journalism desk, said that what Apple was doing was "A danger to the public's right to reliable information on current affairs."
If you own an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any of the iPhone 16 models and are running iOS 18.2, you could be receiving the AI-generated news notifications. You can tell them apart from regular notifications because of the icon at the beginning of the notification which looks like the "Enter" icon on a QWERTY keyboard viewed in a mirror.
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