Getty ImagesApple is facing fresh calls to roll back its controversial artificial intelligence (AI) feature that has generated false news alerts on its latest iPhones.
The product purports to summarize breaking news reports, but in some cases it has invented completely false claims.
The BBC first complained to the tech company in December that its journalism had been misrepresented, but Apple did not respond until Monday this week, when it said it was working to clarify. Doing that summaries were generated from AI.
Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told the BBC that Apple needed to go further and pull a product that he said was “clearly not ready.”
Mr. Rusbridger, who also sits on Meta’s oversight board that reviews appeals of the company’s content moderation decisions, added that the technology is “out of control” and poses a significant risk of misinformation.
“Trust in the news is already pretty low unless big American corporations are using it as a test product,” he told the Today program on BBC Radio Four.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), one of the world’s largest unions for journalists, said Apple “must act quickly” and remove Apple Intelligence to prevent the public from being misinformed. Advance calls from the journalistic organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“At a time when access to accurate reporting has never been more important, the public should not be put in a position to second-guess the accuracy of the news,” said NUJ General Secretary Laura Davison.
RSF also said Apple’s intervention was insufficient, and reiterated its demand that the product be taken offline.
Series of errors
The BBC Complained Last month an AI-generated summary of its headline falsely told some readers that Luigi Mangione, accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.
On Friday, Apple’s AI incorrectly summarized the BBC app’s notifications. To claim that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship. Hours before it started – and that Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.
It’s the first time Apple has officially responded to concerns raised by the BBC about the bugs, which appear to be coming from within the organization’s app.
“These AI summaries from Apple do not reflect – and in some cases completely contradict – the BBC’s original content,” the BBC said on Monday.
“It’s important that Apple address these issues immediately because the accuracy of our news is essential to maintaining trust.”
The BBC is not the only news organization affected.
In November, a ProPublica journalist shed light A false Apple AI summary of New York Times app alerts shows that it reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.
Another false summary of a New York Times story appears to have appeared on January 6, the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riots.
The New York Times declined to comment.
RSF said a false, AI-generated headline about Mr Mangione in December showed that “generative AI services are still too immature to provide reliable information to the public”.
On Tuesday, he said Apple plans to update the feature to clarify that “the problem isn’t quite fixed” when notifications are summarized to users with AI.
Vincent Berthier, head of RSF’s technology and journalism desk, said, “This simply shifts the responsibility to consumers, who – in an already confusing information landscape – would be expected to check whether information is accurate or not.” No.”
Apple said its update will arrive “in the coming weeks.”
He has Said before Its notification summaries — which group together and rewrite previews of multiple recent app notifications into a single alert on users’ lock screens — are intended to allow users to “scan for important details.” .
“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we’re constantly improving with user feedback,” the company said in a statement Monday, adding that receiving the summary is optional.
“A software update in the coming weeks will make it clearer when the text being displayed is a summary provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to be concerned if they see an unexpected notification summary. Report.”
feature, Released as part of its broader suite of AI tools, along with others. It was launched in the UK in December. It’s only available on its iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max handsets running iOS 18.1 and above, as well as some iPads and Macs.
Apple isn’t alone in developing creative AI tools that can create text, images and more content at users’ cues — but with different results.
Google’s AI Overviews feature, which provides a written summary of information from results at the top of its search engine in response to user queries, faced criticism last year. to produce some random reaction.
At the time, a Google spokesperson said these were “isolated instances” and that the feature was generally working well.