Apple Responds to Misinformation by Removing Feature
Apple has chosen to discontinue the news feature in Apple Intelligence after receiving complaints about the spread of false information. Here's what you need to know about this significant decision.
Apple Halts Controversial AI Feature
Apple has temporarily suspended one of its most controversial artificial intelligence features to address a significant issue: the spread of misinformation.
What’s Wrong with the Notification Summary?
The issue lies with the notification summary function, which uses an AI model on the device to distill details from notifications and display only what’s relevant to the user. This can be handy for emails, although it tends to favor spam, but problematic for news. For instance, during a high-profile incident, the system falsely suggested that Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had committed suicide—a completely incorrect assertion.
Apple’s Measures
An Apple spokesperson told BBC News that the feature will be disabled in the upcoming iOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3 beta updates until the issue is resolved. AI-generated summaries from other apps will be italicized to indicate they are not human-written. The spokesperson added, “We are working on improvements and will make them available in a future software update.”
What Happened?
Most of Apple’s AI functionalities occur on the device using a relatively small language model. While AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini have largely solved the issue of hallucination, it remains a problem for smaller models. Apple’s smart summaries condense content from notifications, whether from your email, a website, or the News app, often leading to humorous, tragic, or concerning outcomes. A BBC spokeswoman said, “We’re pleased Apple has listened to our concerns and suspended the summary feature for news.”
Other AI Features from Apple
Despite this setback, Apple continues to develop innovative AI features. For instance, the ChatGPT tool in iOS 18.2 offers a variety of functionalities, and Visual Intelligence provides Apple’s take on Google Lens. Users eagerly await the next iOS 18 update.