Apple’s latest AI news alerts seem to have gone rogue, delivering headlines that are more fiction than fact. Among the eyebrow-raising claims, some iPhone users were told that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing a US insurance CEO, had taken his own life – even though he’s alive and well in prison.
And if you were wondering about tennis star Rafael Nadal’s personal life, prepare for a plot twist: the AI boldly declared that he’d come out as gay, without any actual confirmation. It seems like Apple’s AI has a flair for dramatic headlines, but Apple is now taking charge of it. The company has announced that it will soon release an update to address issues with these AI-powered news alerts.
The tech giant revealed that the update would make it clearer when news alerts are summaries generated by Apple’s AI system, with the fix expected in the coming weeks. This follows a formal complaint from the BBC, which pointed out that some iPhone users received misleading alerts that falsely linked its logo to reports, including one stating that Mangione had died. However, he is currently alive and incarcerated.
“Apple Intelligence features are in beta, and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback,” Apple said in a statement.
“A software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarisation provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report a concern if they view an unexpected notification summary.”
Apple Intelligence notification summaries, available on devices running iOS 18.1 and newer, are designed to streamline notifications by summarising multiple alerts from the same app into a single sentence. However, these concise summaries can sometimes cause issues when the AI misinterprets the content of news articles. Apple is working on fixing this issue.
