Apple Faces Criticism Over AI-Generated News Headline Summaries

[MacRumors]

Apple is facing calls to remove its AI-powered notification summaries feature after it generated false headlines about a high-profile murder case, drawing criticism from a major journalism organization.

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

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged Apple to disable the Apple Intelligence notification feature, which rolled out globally last week as part of its iOS 18.2 software update. The request comes after the feature created a misleading headline suggesting that murder suspect Luigi Mangione had shot himself, incorrectly attributing the false information to BBC News.

Mangione in fact remains under maximum security at Huntingdon State Correctional Institution in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, after having been charged with first-degree murder in the killing of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson in New York.

The BBC has confirmed that it filed a complaint with Apple regarding the headline incident. The RSF has since argued that summaries of the type prove that "generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public."

Vincent Berthier, head of RSF's technology and journalism desk, said that "AIs are probability machines, and facts can't be decided by a roll of the dice." He called the automated production of false information "a danger to the public's right to reliable information."

This isn't an isolated incident, either. The New York Times reportedly experienced a similar issue when Apple Intelligence incorrectly summarized an article about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, creating a notification claiming he had been arrested when the original article discussed an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

Apple's AI feature aims to reduce notification overload by condensing alerts into brief summaries, and is currently available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 models, and select iPads and Macs running the latest operating system versions. The summarization feature is enabled by default, but users can manually disable it through their device settings.

• iOS Notification Summaries Lost in Translation? How to Turn Them Off

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

(Via BBC News.)

Article Link: Apple Faces Criticism Over AI-Generated News Headline Summaries

 

[Rayansb]

Thanks for letting me know this can be turned off.

 

[kirky29]

The only reason I keep mine on is that it summarizes my partner’s messages to me, and some of them make me laugh!
'Lorna needs money now', 'Lorna hungry, will get cranky if not eat soon', 'Lorna late for work, ate chickens instead'. The other notifications are actually annoying and not informative for me one bit!

 

[icanhazmac]

Mad Libs for the modern age!

 

[attohs]

Was the source article well written? Could be a case of junk in, junk out. Would be ironic if it’s from an AI written article.

 

[CarpalMac]

Clearly not improving quickly...

Apple AI notification summaries exist; rarely useful, often hilarious

Article written; Apple Intelligence funny; John Wick discussed.

www.theverge.com

 

[Mr_Ed]

This crap’s just not ready for prime time. I still don’t understand the urge to push out these AI features few are actually asking for.

 

[nfl46]

This crap’s just not ready for prime time. I still don’t understand the urge to push out these AI features few are actually asking for.

They needed something to market the iPhone 16 series since they couldn’t find much of anything else.

 

[CarpalMac]

This crap’s just not ready for prime time. I still don’t understand the urge to push out these AI features few are actually asking for.

It is all a marketing teams wet dream. I myself am immediately repelled by any product or service touting such nonsense.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Was the source article well written? Could be a case of junk in, junk out. Would be ironic if it’s from an AI written article.

Define “well written”. In my world, there is no level of “bad writing” that should ever result in a false (as in, not stated anywhere in the article) fact being inferred from the writing, regardless of source.

 

[dannys1]

If you want privacy you get tiny on device models which aren't as good at the job.

But yes as a big AI proponent the implementation of LLMs by Apple so far has been disappointing and disjointed - mainly because I think they're too far behind the curve.

It will get better with time. We need features like being able to point your camera at a card with appointment dates and having it automatically add them to your calender. The tech for this has been there for two years, but not running on a small device with a tiny LLM - and not hooked into Apple's APIs so it can actually do it.

That' is what they're heading towards but I just think they're struggling to keep up with writing the new APIs and creating the guardrails for the LLM to interact with. They need LOTS of them and a very solid LLM to handle them so you could ask Siri anything it sees on the screen and tell it to do something on the phone with it and it'd have the ability to achieve it.

One day...maybe.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The “Fake news” tag used to generally be a recurring lie to try to undermine or redirect truth. Now we have what is spun as cutting-edge technology creating it daily and on purpose. The irony should not be lost on anyone… unless you think this post is fake news too. Perhaps it’s fake news about fake news? 😉

 

[JCCL]

The only reason I keep mine on is that it summarizes my partner’s messages to me, and some of them make me laugh!
'Lorna needs money now', 'Lorna hungry, will get cranky if not eat soon', 'Lorna late for work, ate chickens instead'. The other notifications are actually annoying and not informative for me one bit!

Agreed. It gets the summaries so wrong all the time that it’s worth leaving on for a laugh. Slack message from coworkers are also summarized pretty badly. I don’t know how the could deem this feature ready for release.

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

People should be reading beyond the headlines anyway.

Not that the BBC want you to do that...

 

[AlexESP]

I'm disappointed to see that Apple gave up to pressure and implemented generative AI against their core beliefs. Gen AI is an impressive and interesting technology, but using it in a customer-facing product goes against Apple's standards. For years, I've supported Apple when it comes to avoiding doing some things - like improving Siri with LLMs, since enhancing it is not worth it when there is the slightest possibility of telling a user that eating pizza with glue or eating rocks is recommended. I still had some hopes, but I'm sad to see they crossed the line on this one.

 

[fatTribble]

I always thought the Headline was the summary 🤔

 

[Mr_Ed]

People should be reading beyond the headlines anyway.

Assuming basic reading skills, which apparently is a bridge too far for Apple Intelligence.

 

[DrJR]

I'm disappointed to see that Apple gave up to pressure and implemented generative AI against their core beliefs. Gen AI is an impressive and interesting technology, but using it in a customer-facing product goes against Apple's standards. For years, I've supported Apple when it comes to avoiding doing some things - like improving Siri with LLMs, since enhancing it is not worth it when there is the slightest possibility of telling a user that eating pizza with glue or eating rocks is recommended. I still had some hopes, but I'm sad to see they crossed the line on this one.

The line for me was crossed when they stopped making printers. Sure I’ve bought every piece of hardware they’ve sold since then, but that was a line in the sand.

 

[contacos]

Not surprised actually. They are taking someone elses thoroughly investigated article and then mess up the headline in an AI generated headline but it will fall back to the creator even though they had nothing to do with it.

Maybe news apps should be excluded

 

[TonyC28]

I’ll dive into semantics just for a moment…
Is what iOS is generating a “headline”, or is it a summary? Because if we are calling it a headline about a news article, Apple/iOS shouldn’t be changing it at all, at least if it’s based on a news article with its own headline.

 

[DrJR]

As long as they don’t teach an LLM to complain, I’m in.

It will only get better. Everyone seems to think LLM’s are made of fairy dust and operate on magic and should be made perfect before the next software iteration……

 

[Mr_Ed]

As long as they don’t teach an LLM to complain, I’m in.

It will only get better. Everyone seems to think LLM’s are made of fairy dust and operate on magic and should be made perfect before the next software iteration……

Apple Engineer: “It’s not ready.”
Apple Bean Counter: “It’s OK. We have 1.6 billion beta testers.”

 

[emulator]

Wag the dog, best movie on this topic ever.

 

[t22design]

AI slop directly to your lock screen. Great ‘feature’.

 

[amaze1499]

Apple is facing calls to remove its AI-powered notification summaries feature after it generated false headlines about a high-profile murder case, drawing criticism from a major journalism organization.

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

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged Apple to disable the Apple Intelligence notification feature, which rolled out globally last week as part of its iOS 18.2 software update. The request comes after the feature created a misleading headline suggesting that murder suspect Luigi Mangione had shot himself, incorrectly attributing the false information to BBC News.

Mangione in fact remains under maximum security at Huntingdon State Correctional Institution in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, after having been charged with first-degree murder in the killing of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson in New York.

The BBC has confirmed that it filed a complaint with Apple regarding the headline incident. The RSF has since argued that summaries of the type prove that "generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public."

Vincent Berthier, head of RSF's technology and journalism desk, said that "AIs are probability machines, and facts can't be decided by a roll of the dice." He called the automated production of false information "a danger to the public's right to reliable information."

This isn't an isolated incident, either. The New York Times reportedly experienced a similar issue when Apple Intelligence incorrectly summarized an article about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, creating a notification claiming he had been arrested when the original article discussed an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

Apple's AI feature aims to reduce notification overload by condensing alerts into brief summaries, and is currently available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 models, and select iPads and Macs running the latest operating system versions. The summarization feature is enabled by default, but users can manually disable it through their device settings.

• iOS Notification Summaries Lost in Translation? How to Turn Them Off

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

(Via BBC News.)

Article Link: Apple Faces Criticism Over AI-Generated News Headline Summaries

Turn it off and use your own brain instead.