Apple Faces Criticism Over AI-Generated News Headline Summaries

Mr_Ed said:
No, you’re not the only one. Whether these features write or re-write things for you, summarize articles or communication, “fix up” your photos, or generate images from text, a lot of these features seem aimed at reducing the amount of time we engage in creative or analytical thinking, presumably so we have more time for other things like . . . doing laundry? I would rather technology reduce the amount of time I need to engage in mundane tasks so I have more time to engage in creative and analytical thinking. I fear the negative impacts of this direction on critical thinking skills won’t be known for a generation, and by then, it will be too late. Damage done.
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Disagree with this take. None of this prevents anyone from “engaging in creative and analytical thinking”. That’s is still completely possible if that’s something you wish to engage in. No one is forced to use any of these new tools. People who currently lack the skills, may use them, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If you want to blame anything, blame the education system. Which has reduced schools to being little more than day care centers for kids. We may very well end up with a generation of morons, but that’s not because of A.I.

It’s just a tool, use it where ever and whenever it makes the most sense to you, if at all.
 
Mr_Ed said:
No, you’re not the only one. Whether these features write or re-write things for you, summarize articles or communication, “fix up” your photos, or generate images from text, a lot of these features seem aimed at reducing the amount of time we engage in creative or analytical thinking, presumably so we have more time for other things like . . . doing laundry? I would rather technology reduce the amount of time I need to engage in mundane tasks so I have more time to engage in creative and analytical thinking. I fear the negative impacts of this direction on critical thinking skills won’t be known for a generation, and by then, it will be too late. Damage done.
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Absolutely! I'm a high school teacher, and we're already starting to see some effects. It's only going to get worse if it's not addressed now.
 
obviouslogic said:
Disagree with this take. None of this prevents anyone from “engaging in creative and analytical thinking”. That’s is still completely possible if that’s something you wish to engage in. No one is forced to use any of these new tools. People who currently lack the skills, may use them, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If you want to blame anything, blame the education system. Which has reduced schools to being little more than day care centers for kids. We may very well end up with a generation of morons, but that’s not because of A.I.

It’s just a tool, use it where ever and whenever it makes the most sense to you, if at all.
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I have to disagree, especially as a teacher. Sure, people can opt out of using or relying on these tools, but guess what, that's not generally how humanity works. When we have a convenience, we use it. Especially the generations that come into the world always having it.

You might not respect or appreciate all that teachers do, but at least understand that we're already fighting a battle to have students use their brains rather that ChatGPT.
 
Yeah, it's pretty terrible. it summarized one of my emails that we fired someone... There was no talk about that at all in the email. It freaked me out for a moment.
 
Have people overlooked the fact that this is in Beta or forgotten exactly what a beta is or how they work? If you don’t care for the “feature”, you can turn it off. Not to mention the fact that this is all opt in, mostly on device processing, and Apple takes into account a user’s privacy.
 

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If someone is getting so much notifications that they need summaries, maybe they need to start changing settings to turn off some notifications entirely.
 
My favorite from my own phone was an ESPN notification about Ja Morant doing a 360 dunk. “Ja Morant dunks 360 times”
 
JDabney24 said:
Have people overlooked the fact that this is in Beta or forgotten exactly what a beta is or how they work?
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The quality of a beta feature can vary drastically, so pointing out that this particular feature seems to be very unreliable at the moment is informative.

Apple also needs end user feedback to iron out the issues, although I do think releasing a beta feature with this level of issues risks damaging Apple Intelligence's reputation.
 
Wow AI gets it wrong once and they want to burn the whole thing down?

If I recall correctly you have to select what notifications you would like to turn it on for and not on by default for everything??

Also BBC isn't the most stellar news source they try to make out they are!
 
Generative AI is fully capable of doing this well... when it's not Apple's half baked, rushed out the door version of it.

I personally enjoy the summaries - as a comedy - but enjoy them. We all play games now to guess what the message really says and other variations.
 
Apple made a huge mistake here. They should have stayed out of this.

Focusing on summarising conversations where a sender sends 19 messages in a row would have been plenty enough to tackle.

And leave news notifications to news organisations. Many of them offer granular options to only receive specific updates or summaries.
 
Everyone keeps blaming the computer for AI's comical summaries. I don't blame the machines or the software, since computers can only deal well with logic and rigid thinking. I blame using English as the language used to query AI. I know no language looser with it's grammatical rules and vocabulary.

Change the query language to one more rigid in both grammar and vocabulary (Latin, maybe?😏), AI would return a logical response. Of course, that won't happen as most of the world is able (some places, only able) to speak English. As some of y'all are saying, "💩 in, 💩 out."
 
obviouslogic said:
Disagree with this take. None of this prevents anyone from “engaging in creative and analytical thinking”. That’s is still completely possible if that’s something you wish to engage in. No one is forced to use any of these new tools.
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Correct.

Emojis don’t prevent anyone from putting in the effort to write a coherent sentence.

And AI Photo postprocessing does not prevent anyone from putting in the effort to improve their photography skills.

And AI writing tools don’t prevent anyone from putting in the effort to improve their writing skills.

And AI generated images don’t prevent anyone from putting in the effort to improve their skills in an artistic endeavor.

But while you and I may be personally committed to self-improvement and a minimum degree of proficiency across multiple endeavors, the vast majority of “the masses” are not because it takes effort. Regardless of what we wish to blame for it (and I agree our schools in the US leave a lot to be desired), the tendency to choose what looks like the easy way on first blush is far from new. This technology puts that trend on steroids where it matters most: critical thinking and creativity.

obviouslogic said:
People who currently lack the skills, may use them, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
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That’s one of the more troubling aspects, especially when we talk about the workplace. Some of the marketing uses humor to suggest that even if you are lacking in skills in the workplace, these tools will help you “not look like a complete loser.” I would argue working to improve any skills that are lacking is the better approach.

obviouslogic said:
If you want to blame anything, blame the education system. Which has reduced schools to being little more than day care centers for kids. We may very well end up with a generation of morons, but that’s not because of A.I.

It’s just a tool, use it where ever and whenever it makes the most sense to you, if at all.
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No question schools could (and should) do better, but even now, educators are in an increasingly difficult situation because they need to put time they probably don’t have into trying to identify and police the use of AI by students. Efforts to teach students to cultivate and rely on their own minds are already taking a hit because some students think it’s OK to use AI instead of putting some effort into the task.

So, the fact that we don’t HAVE to use this technology does not, in my mind, lessen the negative impact it will have in the not too distant future.
 
attohs said:
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.
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What do you mean? The article would have been about the suspect, and the shooting. Under no circumstance should ‘AI’ somehow confuse the info within the context and push out ‘suspect shoots himself’. That’s like saying an article about Elon Space X and Mars gets summarized as Elon in Space rides Mars.
 
Will take some time for it to improve. Anyway quite satisfied with the summarizing feature for messages. For now there is an option to turn it off if required.
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
They’re threatened by A.I. because A.I. can work for free and humans who do actual journalism work have bills to pay. When A.I. comes for our jobs, let’s be sure we exhibit no worry… that we are 'entertained' at it replacing our jobs too. Our bills will apparently be magically paid just like this professions. Empathy: what a concept!

White collar professionals had better be learning new skills very hard for A.I. to replicate. And don't automatically assume that is blue collar skills as the leap from white collar brain work to blue collar muscle work is only making A.I. in robotics dig that new trench or septic tank... like delivering packages to addresses... or driving that taxi. But again, all professions that A.I. can replace will still magically be able to pay their bills too.

Don't worry. It will be 'entertaining' to displace biological workers with free artificial workers. What can go wrong?
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What you’re describing has been going on for hundreds of years. Just because a job gets replaced by technology doesn’t mean someone can’t work. It’s been a while since I’ve hired a farrier to shoe my horse, but I occasionally get new tires. Should we remove ATMs? How many bank tellers have lost their jobs because of that?
 
Not criticizing progress (wouldn't matter at all if any of us was anyway)- just taking a poke at someone claiming to be 'entertained' by others worrying about losing their professions to A.I. replacements. Yes, that doesn't mean that- say- journalists can't become something else to make their livings but it's likely not nearly as 'entertaining' to be on their end of this situation right now. The message was about empathy!

When A.I. comes for OP's job, or yours or mine, we may not be so thrilled that it "has been going on for hundreds of years" too. The bills don't care about any kind of rationalization- only if the biological workers can pay bills or not.

And it cometh for many white collar jobs that pay biological workers now... just as cheaper labor overseas gobbled up classic blue collar jobs. A.I. workers will be far cheaper than anywhere else... and thus take all the jobs that it can do. The few in positions able to replace biologicals with technological workers will likely enjoy the fatter profits from much reduced labor costs... but those biologicals with no jobs still have to pay their bills... or not. If they don't/can't, then what?
 
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Before I turned it off, I woke up to an email notification that I had been charged with sexual assault. I almost had a heart attack.

It was trying to summarize an email from Doximity with "News Articles Curated for [my legal name]", and the first article was about some random guy getting charged with sexual assault 😐
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
Not criticizing progress- just taking a poke at someone claiming to be 'entertained' by others worrying about losing their professions to A.I. replacements. Yes, that doesn't mean that- say- journalists can't become something else but it's likely not nearly as 'entertaining' to be on their end of this situation right now.

When A.I. comes for OP's job, or yours or mine, we may not be so thrilled that it "has been going on for hundreds of years" too. The bills don't care about that kind of rationalization- just if the biological workers can pay our bills or not.

And it cometh for many white collar jobs that pay biological workers now... just as cheaper labor overseas gobbled up classic blue collar jobs. A.I. workers will be far cheaper than anywhere else... and thus take all the jobs that it can do. The few replacing biologicals with technological workers will likely enjoy the fatter profit from much reduced labor costs... but those biologicals with no jobs still have to pay their bills... or not. If they don't/can't, then what?
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Poke away because I don’t mind. Yes I am entertained and maybe that’s a bad thing. I would be just as entertained if it was politicians, lawyers, or used car salesman.

My job will likely be replaced by technology in 5-10 years. I’m not excited about that, but I don’t want technology to stop or be held back so I can keep my job. That would be horrible and detrimental to the entire society. It’s up to me to learn something relevant for a new job.

What happens when we all get replaced by machines? I think that’s a very good possibility within the next 50 years. I’m not sure of the answer to that one. I don’t think the answer is hold technology back so we can have these jobs that are not necessary.
 
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