After a news organization and press freedom groups attacked Apple for routinely sending consumers headlines full of errors, the company temporarily eliminated its recently established artificial intelligence tool that highlights news notifications.
After the technology created inaccurate or deceptive summaries of news items that looked nearly similar to standard push alerts, the iPhone manufacturer experienced a rare reversal in the promotion of its extensively promoted Apple Intelligence feature.
AI Errors Cause Issues
The changes were made a few weeks after the BBC objected to Apple about an item that falsely claimed that Luigi Mansion, the man guilty of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, had shot himself.
After Apple Intelligence highlights led to an inaccurate headline for a report by the British media that overstated a report on Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last month by indicating that he had committed suicide, the BBC signed an official complaint.
- It's the most recent in a string of troublesome AI feature launches by tech behemoths; in June, Microsoft revealed modifications to its Recall tool in response to privacy and security experts' issues.
- After getting complaints regarding diversity, Google stopped AI image creation in February last year.
Apple Faces AI Accuracy Concerns
Reporters without Borders have designated the overviews "a danger to the public's right to relevant information on current affairs." The National Union of Journalists, one of the most significant journalist unions in the world, has asserted that "the public must not be put in a position of second-guessing the reliability of news they receive."
Press freedom groups have also called attention to the summaries' risks to consumers looking for trustworthy detail. Both required the removal of the AI-driven summary. Popular models like ChatGPT generally produce confident "hallucinations"; therefore Apple's AI issues are not the first time a creator has had to deal with the technology inventing detail.
When customers activate the notification summaries feature, Apple will also alert them that it is a beta version. This message in the Settings app will alert users that there may be issues with the feature.
What are They Responding to?
According to an email sent by Apple on Thursday night, notification summaries for the News & Entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable due to the most recent beta software releases of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3. "We are working on improvements and will make them available in a future software update."
What to Expect
When a user turns on notification summaries, Apple implements modifications to clearly show, with italicized text, that the software is a beta feature that occasionally may offer unexpected outcomes. Users will be able to control this feature from the lock screen.