Apple has been accused of spreading fake news about Luigi Mangione.
The British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) has filed a complaint after the tech giant’s new Apple Intelligence generated a misleading summary of a BBC news article about the alleged assassin.
The summary suggested that Mangione had shot himself.
It read: ‘Luigi Mangione shoots himself; Syrian mother hopes Assad pays the price; South Korea police raid Yoon Suk Yeol’s office,’ in reference to three articles that had supposedly been published by the BBC.
The summarized notifications feature is a part of Apple Intelligence, Apple’s new AI system which launched in the UK on December 11.
Notification summaries appear at the top of a stack of notifications from the same app and are supposed to give the user an overview of things they missed.
After identifying the error, a spokesperson for the BBC contacted Apple ‘to raise this concern and fix the problem,’ according to the broadcaster.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate Mangione is alive and in jail in Pennsylvania, awaiting an extradition hearing after being charged with shooting and killing UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson.
The British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) has filed a complaint to Apple after the tech giant’s AI generated a false headline stating Luigi Mangione shot himself
The notification read: ‘Luigi Mangione shoots himself; Syrian mother hopes Assad pays the price; South Korea police raid Yoon Suk Yeol’s office,’ in reference to three articles that had supposedly been published by the BBC
‘BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world,’ said the unnamed BBC spokesperson.
‘It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications.’
Apple did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
The BBC pointed out that this isn’t the first time Apple Intelligence has given misleading summaries of news articles.
On November 21, the New York Times suffered from a similar mistake. The AI grouped three articles together in one notification, with the first part reading ‘Netanyahu arrested,’ referring to the Israeli prime minister.
This wrongly summarized a New York Times report about the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
The prime minister has not been arrested, nor did the newspaper incorrectly report that he has been.
The New York Times has not publicly acknowledged the error and declined to comment to BBC news. At this time, whether the paper contacted Apple about this matter remains unclear.
The mistakes appear to be relatively widespread. Numerous iPhone users have shared screenshots of notification summaries that are inaccurate and sometimes nonsensical.
The New York Times suffered from a similar mistake in November. The AI grouped three articles together in one notification, with the first part reading ‘Netanyahu arrested’
Numerous iPhone users have shared screenshots of notification summaries that are inaccurate and sometimes downright nonsensical
The notification summaries feature will summarize texts, too, sometimes with alarming inaccuracy
‘Big fan of Apple Intelligence’s summary feature—mainly because it turns every boring notification I wouldn’t previously read into a cute little mystery to unwrap,’ one X user posted with a screenshot of an Apple News summary.
The summarized notification read: ‘Love salmon might not be a good idea; polar bears are back in Britain.’
This feature doesn’t just summarize news articles. It can also summarize your messages, sometimes with alarming inaccuracy.
Another X user posted a screenshot of Apple Intelligence’s attempt to summarize a text from their mom.
It read: ‘Attempted suicide, but recovered and hiked in Redlands and Palm Springs,’ when the actual message apparently read: ‘That hike almost killed me!’
These screenshots are unverified, but they are among many other reports of similar issues with the Apple Intelligence feature. While some of them may be easy to laugh at, there are dangers associated with misreporting facts in this way.
Prof Petros Iosifidis, a professor in media policy at City University in London, told BBC News that there are potential advantages to this type of feature, ‘but the technology is not there yet and there is a real danger of spreading disinformation.’
‘I can see the pressure getting to the market first, but I am surprised that Apple put their name on such demonstrably half-baked product,’ he said.
Apple has not stated whether they are working to fix the feature. So for the time being, iPhone users will have to be wary of information conveyed in these summaries.
