Apple said it will update, rather than discontinue, a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.
The company, in its first acknowledgment of concerns, said Monday that it was working to change the software to “further clarify” when notifications are summaries generated by Apple's Intelligence system.
The tech giant is facing calls to withdraw the technology after its flawed performance.
BBC He complained Last month after an AI-generated summary of its headline incorrectly told some readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.
On Friday, Apple's AI inaccurately summarized BBC app notifications to claim that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship hours before it started – and that Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.
This is the first time that Apple has officially responded to concerns expressed by the BBC about the bugs, which appear to be coming from within the organisation's app.
“These Apple summaries spread misinformation that does not reflect – and in some cases is completely at odds with – the BBC's original content,” the BBC said on Monday.
“They harm trust not only in the BBC, but in news and information more widely. It is vital that Apple addresses these issues urgently.”
Apple said the update will arrive “in the coming weeks.”
I have He said previously Its notification summaries — which collect together and rewrite previews of many recent app notifications into a single alert on user lock screens — are intended to allow users to “look up key details.”
“Apple Intelligence features are in beta, and we are constantly working on improvements with the help of user feedback,” the company said in a statement on Monday, adding that receiving summaries is optional.
“A software update in the coming weeks will make it clearer when the text displayed is a summary provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report concerns if they see an unexpected summary of notifications.”
advantage, Along with other tools released as part of its broader suite of AI tools It was launched in the UK in December. It's only available on iPhone 16, iPhone 15 Pro, and Pro Max models running iOS 18.1 and later, as well as some iPad and Mac devices.
Several examples of technology that appears to interpret messages in an overly literal way have spread on social media.
In November, a journalist from ProPublica Highlight Apple AI false summaries of alerts from the New York Times app indicating that the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reported.
The BBC was unable to independently verify the screenshots, and the New York Times declined to comment.
Reporters Without Borders, an organization representing the rights and interests of journalists, Apple called for disabling this feature In December.
She said that attributing a false headline about Mr Mangione to the BBC showed that “productive AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public”.
Apple isn't the only company to roll out creative AI tools that can generate text, images, and more content when users ask for it — but with mixed results.
Google's “AI Overviews” feature, which provides a written summary of information from results at the top of its search engine in response to user queries, faced criticism last year. To produce some incorrect responses.
At the time, a Google spokesperson said these were “isolated examples” and that the feature worked well overall.
