Apple urged to remove new AI feature after falsely summarizing news reports

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders is urging Apple to remove its newly introduced artificial intelligence feature that summarizes news stories after it produced a false headline from the BBC.

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders is urging Apple to remove its newly introduced artificial intelligence feature that summarizes news stories after it produced a false headline from the BBC.

The backlash comes after a push notification created by Apple Intelligence and sent to users last week falsely summarized a BBC report that Luigi Mangione, the suspect behind the killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, had shot himself.

The BBC reported it had contacted Apple about the feature “to raise this concern and fix the problem,” but it could not confirm if the iPhone maker had responded to its complaint.

On Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders technology and journalism desk chief Vincent Berthier called on Apple “to act responsibly by removing this feature.”

“A.I.s are probability machines, and facts can’t be decided by a roll of the dice,” Berthier said in a statement. “The automated production of false information attributed to a media outlet is a blow to the outlet’s credibility and a danger to the public’s right to reliable information on current affairs.”

More broadly, the journalist body said it is “very concerned about the risks posed to media outlets by new A.I. tools, noting that the incident emphasizes how A.I. remains “too immature to produce reliable information for the public, and should not be allowed on the market for such uses.”

“The probabilistic way in which A.I. systems operate automatically disqualifies them as a reliable technology for news media that can be used in solutions aimed at the general public,” RSF said in a statement.