Apple is facing backlash after its AI-powered notification feature mistakenly issued a false news alert, attributing it to the BBC. The alert falsely claimed the murder of Luigi Mangione, a suspect in the killing of the United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. Whereas in reality, Mangione, 26, remains in Pennsylvania, awaiting extradition to New York.
Apple Intelligence(AI), was launched in UK earlier this week. This feature uses Artificial Intelligence to summarise and group together notifications. The one which indicated the suicide of Luigi Mangione was sent to all the iPhones attributing to the BBC two days back.
BBC iPhone subscribers received a notification with the headline: “Luigi Mangione shoots himself,” creating an impression among readers that the news was true.
The BBC, whose name was linked to the false alert, has filed a complaint with the US tech giant over the issue. “BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world,” a BBC spokesperson stated after raising concern with the Apple.
“It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications,” the spokesperson added.
Apple AI Services’ Glitch
This is not the first instance of AI-generated news releasing false headlines. On November 21, Apple’s AI service combined three separate topics related to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the New York Times, with one section incorrectly stating, “Netanyahu arrested.”
The AI inaccurately summarized a report about the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, rather than any news of his actual arrest.
The error was highlighted by a journalist from the US Investigative journalism site ProPublica.
Lack of Contextualization
Another flaw AI faces is its inability to distinguish between phrases and reality. AI-generated texts can contain significant errors due to a lack of contextualization, as they pull both false and true information from various sources. The failure to validate sources or verify news remains a major limitation in the current stage of AI development. While AI can analyse data and recognize patterns, it cannot make moral or ethical decisions.
The BBC and other publishers are now questioning Apple’s accountability in handling the consequences of such errors.
The news feature from Apple is available to iPhone users using iOS 18.1 system version or later on all iPhone 16s, the 15 Pro, and the 15 Pro Max.
