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NewsJanuary 12, 20252 minutes
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Apple is being urged to retract its "out of control" AI-generated news alerts.

Apple is facing renewed pressure to remove its controversial AI feature, which has been generating inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.

This feature, designed to summarize breaking news notifications, has at times produced entirely false claims. In December, the BBC raised concerns about its content being misrepresented, but Apple only responded this week, stating that it is working to make it clear when summaries are AI-generated.

Alan Rusbridger, former editor of The Guardian, criticized the feature, calling it "clearly not ready" and claiming it posed a significant risk of spreading misinformation. He added that the technology was "out of control," further eroding trust in news.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), one of the largest journalist unions globally, echoed these concerns, urging Apple to remove the AI feature to prevent the spread of misinformation. Laura Davison, the NUJ general secretary, emphasized the importance of providing the public with accurate news, especially in today’s information landscape.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also expressed dissatisfaction with Apple’s response and reiterated its demand for the product to be taken offline.

Series of Errors

The BBC raised alarms last month after an AI-generated summary falsely claimed that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself. On Friday, another AI summary misreported that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship before the event had started, and that Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

These errors were the first time Apple formally acknowledged concerns raised by the BBC, which stated that these AI-generated summaries were inaccurate and sometimes contradicted the original content.

In addition to the BBC, other media organizations have been affected. In November, a ProPublica journalist highlighted a similar issue with AI summaries of news from The New York Times, including a false report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

RSF criticized the false headline about Mangione, noting that it highlighted the immaturity of generative AI in producing reliable news. The group also criticized Apple's response, arguing that simply clarifying when summaries are AI-generated places too much responsibility on users to verify the truth of information.

Apple stated that it plans to release an update in the coming weeks to clarify when notifications are summaries provided by Apple Intelligence. The company added that receiving these summaries is optional and that it is continuously working to improve the feature with user feedback.

The AI-powered feature, which summarizes multiple notifications into one alert on users' lock screens, was rolled out in the UK in December. It is currently available only on iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max running iOS 18.1 and above, as well as some iPads and Macs.

Apple is not the only company facing challenges with AI-driven tools. Google's AI-powered overview feature, which summarizes information from search results, also received criticism for producing erratic responses last year, although the company labeled these as isolated incidents.