Repeated AI News Alert Errors, Apple Backs Down

Public Protest from BBC over Distorted News Summaries

Apple has suspended the iPhone's 'Notification Summary' feature that uses artificial intelligence (AI) after repeated errors. This action was taken following a series of issues raised by foreign media due to inaccurate news summaries.

On the 16th (local time), Yonhap News Agency reported, citing The New York Times (NYT), that Apple will disable the news summary notification feature, considered a representative AI function, through a software update for developers.

Apple Store. Yonhap News

The Notification Summary feature uses Apple's proprietary AI to summarize key details of push notifications from texts, emails, social networking services, and news. It was launched in English last October and is available on iPhone 16 models and iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max running iOS 18.1 or later.

Apple's move came shortly after news emerged that BBC's article summaries were delivering incorrect information to users. Apple Intelligence incorrectly summarized an article related to Luigi Mangione, who is accused of murdering the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. The summary stated that he had taken his own life.

At the time, a BC spokesperson criticized, saying, "All information or journalism published under our name must be trustworthy, and this includes notifications."

Apple's artificial intelligence news summary service summarizing an article with incorrect information. BBC

In November last year, The New York Times reported that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges including war crimes. However, Apple summarized the article as stating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

After the incident, Apple announced plans to "implement updates," but as public opinion worsened, it is interpreted that the company hastily decided to temporarily suspend the service. Apple stated, "This feature is in beta service version and may produce unexpected results."

Going forward, Apple announced that all AI notifications and summaries will be displayed in italics to distinguish them from regular notifications. Additionally, users will be able to disable AI notification and summary features for specific apps.

At the end of last year, Apple unveiled its self-developed AI, Apple Intelligence. It already has functions such as generating emoji and summarizing news or web page content. However, it is still not possible to assign specific tasks to the AI, and the performance of the voice assistant Siri has not significantly improved.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.