Apple Disables AI-Generated News Summaries Amid Complaints of Made-Up Info – PYMNTS.com
Apple reportedly disabled artificial intelligence-generated news summaries on the beta version of a new iOS operating system.The company did so after earlier updates failed to stop the Apple Intelligence-powered feature from incorrectly summarizing or simply making up information, The Washington Post reported Friday (Jan. 17).Some news organizations asked Apple to do something about the feature after it botched summaries of their news articles while still attributing the articles to them, according to the report.The latest update, iOS 18.3, will soon be distributed to all iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, the report said.Apple aims to improve the news feature and bring it back in a future update, per the report.It was reported in November that Apple was facing mounting criticism over the inaccurate and misleading headline summaries produced by its AI-driven news summary feature.The BBC flagged the issue in December when a news alert summary that looked to come from the BBC app wrongly reported that Luigi Mangione, who is charged with killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, had shot himself.In another instance, Apple’s news summary said Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship before the contest even began.Other publications experienced similar hallucinations from Apple’s AI.Vincent Berthier, head of the technology and journalism desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French), called on Apple to remove the feature from its iPhones.“The automated production of false information attributed to a media outlet is a blow to the outlet’s credibility and a danger to the public’s right to reliable information on current affairs,” Berthier wrote on the group’s website.AI hallucinations, in which AI systems generate plausible but inaccurate information, present a vexing problem for businesses, PYMNTS reported in June.The risks posed by these fabricated outputs are coming into sharp focus as companies increasingly rely on AI to drive decision-making.In October, OpenAI’s Whisper transcription software was caught adding fabricated text to conversations, including potentially harmful content that speakers never uttered.On Tuesday (Jan. 14), it was reported that the issue of hallucinations is one of the roadblocks Amazon has run into during its planned revamp of Alexa into a smarter voice assistant with generative AI at its core.For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
