Apple forced to recall AI news summary feature after fake news alert controversy

Apple has suspended its new AI-powered news summarization feature following a series of high-profile inaccuracies that led to widespread criticism. The feature, branded under the company’s “Apple Intelligence” initiative, generated news summaries for iPhone users but recently pushed false and misleading alerts.

Among the errors was a notification falsely claiming that Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had committed suicide. The alert was incorrectly attributed to the BBC, whose logo appeared on the summary.

Other inaccuracies included a notification stating that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts final before playing in it and a summary suggesting tennis star Rafael Nadal had “come out” as gay. Another alert, branded with the New York Times logo, falsely claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

Apple’s response

Acknowledging the errors, Apple announced it would suspend the feature as part of an imminent software update. “Notification summaries for the news and entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable,” Apple stated. “We are working on improvements and will make them available in a future software update.”

The AI-powered summaries had been rolled out in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, but were not deployed in the EU or China. The feature was designed to group news notifications into a single, concise alert on users’ lock screens, and was part of Apple’s broader push to integrate artificial intelligence into its ecosystem.

Initially, Apple had planned to update the service rather than suspend it. However, growing criticism, including a formal complaint from the BBC and calls from the UK’s National Union of Journalists to remove the feature, prompted the company to take more decisive action.

BBC response

The BBC welcomed Apple’s decision to pause the service, emphasizing the importance of accurate news delivery. “We’re pleased that Apple has listened to our concerns and is pausing the summarisation feature for news,” a BBC spokesperson said. “Our priority is the accuracy of the news we deliver to audiences, which is essential to building and maintaining trust.”