International journalism organization Reporters Without Borders called Thursday for Apple to remove its new artificial intelligence-powered news notifications, following a complaint from the BBC over a wildly inaccurate news summary. Apple Intelligence’s notifications summary feature generated a misleading BBC News headline last week about a high-profile murder case in the United States, falsely stating the accused shooter had shot himself.
Pressure on Apple to drop AI news summaries after false Luigi Mangione headline
Apple Intelligence, the suite of AI features that began rolling out on iPhones, Macs and iPads this fall, includes a variety of fun and useful tools. But it’s still in beta — and that means mistakes can happen. One Apple Intelligence feature that supposedly will save users time is the AI’s ability to create short summaries of a group of notifications. The controversy arose when Apple Intelligence created a false headline crediting BBC News with reporting that murder suspect Luigi Mangione had shot himself. But Mangione, charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York, remains in custody at Huntingdon State Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.
Now Reporters Without Borders, a journalism advocacy group that advises the United Nations and Council of Europe, has urged Apple to disable the feature, criticizing the technology’s reliability, BBC News reported.
“AIs are probability machines, and facts can’t be decided by a roll of the dice,” said Vincent Berthier, head of Reporters Without Borders’ technology and journalism desk.
The organization argues that the incident demonstrates that generative AI services are not yet mature enough to produce reliable information for public consumption. It said such technologies “should not be allowed on the market for such uses.” The organization maintains that automated production of false information attributed to media outlets not only damages their credibility but also poses a significant risk to the public’s right to reliable information on current affairs.
Apple launched its AI service in the United Kingdom last week as a slow international rollout continues.
BBC complaint
The BBC, which filed a complaint with Apple over the misleading headline, emphasized the importance of maintaining trust with its audience.
“BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world,” a spokesperson said. “It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications.”
The false Mangione headline isn’t an isolated incident. The New York Times reportedly experienced a similar issue when Apple Intelligence incorrectly summarized an article about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The AI feature created a notification claiming Netanyahu had been arrested, when the original article actually discussed an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, not an arrest.
Apple Intelligence notifications summaries are part of iOS 18.2 update
The controversial feature, which arrived in the U.K. on December 11 with Apple’s latest software updates, aims to reduce notification overload by condensing alerts into brief summaries. It is currently available on iPhone 15 Pro, all iPhone 16 models and select iPads and Macs running the latest operating systems. While the summarization feature is enabled by default, users can manually disable it through their device settings.
As of now, Apple has not commented on the controversy or indicated whether it plans to modify or remove the feature. The BBC says it awaits a response to its complaint.
