After issuing a series of inaccurate news alerts Apple said it will update its artificial intelligence feature. Some of the false headlines the technology generated included one that said Luigi Mangione, the accused UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter, had killed himself and another that tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.
Apple said it’s developing a software update to “further clarify” when news headlines are actually summaries generated by Apple Intelligence and the update will roll out in the coming weeks. However, media outlets and journalist organizations want the feature ended altogether.
The BBC filed a formal complaint in December 2024 after an incorrect news alert summarized by Apple Intelligence but branded with the BBC’s logo claimed Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had shot himself. Mangione had not and is alive and being held in a New York prison.
Multiple false news alerts were also issued during the week of Dec. 30, when Apple’s AI summarized BBC app notifications to wrongly say tennis star Rafael Nadal came out as gay and claimed Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship hours before the competition even began.
It’s not just the BBC. In November 2024, a ProPublica journalist flagged an inaccurate Apple AI summary of a New York Times alert that wrongly claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.
The U.K.’s National Union of Journalists is now calling for Apple to “act swiftly” and remove its artificial intelligence to avoid spreading misinformation. Journalist group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) echoed that sentiment.
“The proposed update looks like an implicit admission that making the feature more trustworthy is not currently an option,” the group said.
RSF also renewed its calls for the feature’s removal.
