Apple Suspends News Summaries Over Accuracy Concerns

Apple disables Apple Intelligence summaries after botched news headline summaries.

Apple is temporarily disabling a key feature of its Apple Intelligence software after it produced inaccurate summaries of news headlines. as reported by The Washington Post.

On Thursday, Apple released a beta update that disables Apple Intelligence summaries for notifications from news and entertainment apps. This update will roll out to all supported iPhones with the upcoming release of iOS 18.3, as reported by The Post.

In the iOS 18.3 beta update, Apple has added a clearer alert about the possibility of unexpected results from notification summaries. To make them stand out, summarized notifications now appear in italics. The update also lets users adjust app notification summary settings directly from the Lock Screen, as reported by The Post.

The move marks a rare acknowledgment of a product flaw by Apple and highlights ongoing challenges tech companies face with generative AI software, which is prone to “hallucinating,” or fabricating information. The Post reports that Apple stated it is working on improvements to the feature and plans to include them in a future software update.

The feature was designed to condense breaking news into alerts for users, has been criticized for generating entirely false claims, leading to calls for its withdrawal. The BBC, among the first to report inaccuracies, highlighted incidents where Apple’s AI summaries misrepresented its news content.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) echoed the BBC’s concerns, demanding Apple remove the tool to prevent further misinformation. NUJ General Secretary Laura Davison emphasized the critical need for accurate reporting, stating that misleading AI-generated content undermines public trust.

“Editorial integrity is crucial to our public service broadcaster and AI generated summaries falsely attributing information, risk harm to the reputation of journalists reporting ethically, ” she stated in the NUJ press release.