Apple says it will update AI characteristic after BBC complaint

Apple has said it will update, rather than pause, a recent artificial intelligence (AI) characteristic that has generated inaccurate information alerts on its latest iPhones.

The business, in its first acknowledgement of the concerns, on Monday said it was working on a software transformation to “further explain” when the notifications are summaries that have been generated by the Apple Intelligence structure.

The tech giant is facing calls to pull the technology after its flawed act.

The BBC complained last month after an AI-generated summary of its headline falsely told some readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.

On Friday, Apple’s AI inaccurately summarised BBC app notifications to claim that Luke Littler had won the PDC globe Darts Championship hours before it began – and that the Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had arrive out as gay.

This marks the first period Apple has formally responded to the concerns voiced by the BBC about the errors, which appear as if they are coming from within the organisation’s app.

“These AI summarisations by Apple do not reflect – and in some cases completely contradict – the original BBC content,” the BBC said on Monday.

“It is critical that Apple urgently addresses these issues as the accuracy of our information is essential in maintaining depend.”

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Apple said its update would arrive “in the coming weeks”.

It has previously said its notification summaries – which throng together and rewrite previews of multiple recent app notifications into a single alert on user’s lock screens – aim to allow users to “scan for key details”.

“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the assist of user feedback,” the business said in a statement on Monday, adding that receiving the summaries is discretionary.

“A software update in the coming weeks will further explain when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence. We inspire users to update a concern if they view an unexpected notification summary.”

The characteristic, along with others released as part of its broader suite of AI tools was rolled out in the UK in December. It is only available on its iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max handsets running iOS 18.1 and above, as well as on some iPads and Macs.

Several instances of the technology appearing to interpret messages in a highly blunt, literal way have gone viral on social media.

In November, a ProPublica journalist highlighted erroneous Apple AI summaries of alerts from the recent York Times app suggesting it had reported that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the screenshots, and the recent York Times declined to comment.

Reporters Without Borders, an organisation representing the rights and interests of journalists, called on Apple to disable the characteristic in December.

It said the attribution of a untrue headline about Mr Mangione to the BBC showed “generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the community”.

Apple is not alone in having rolled out generative AI tools that can make text, images and more content when prompted by users – but with varying results.

Google’s AI overviews characteristic, which provides a written summary of information from results at the top of its search engine in response to user queries, faced criticism last year for producing some erratic responses.

At the period a Google spokesperson said that these were ‘isolated examples’ and that the characteristic was generally working well.