Reporters Without Borders Calls for Apple to Remove Its AI News Summaries

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on Apple to discontinue its AI-powered notification summary feature after one of its alerts wrongly stated that alleged UnitedHealth shooter Luigi Mangione had died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

“AIs are probability machines, and facts can’t be decided by a roll of the dice,” says Vincent Berthier, head of RSF’s Technology and Journalism Desk, in a statement. “RSF calls on Apple to act responsibly by removing this feature.”

Apple Intelligence can scan notifications and serve up a quick digest on the lock screen. That backfired when it wrongly summarized a news story from the BBC about the NYC shooting.

“The automated production of false information attributed to a media outlet is a blow to the outlet’s credibility and a danger to the public’s right to reliable information on current affairs,” Berthier says. He chastised EU lawmakers for not classifying information-generating AIs as “high-risk systems” in the AI Act they passed earlier this year, “leaving a critical legal vacuum [that] must be filled immediately.”

Apple Intelligence launched in the UK on Dec. 11, and the alert in question went out about 48 hours later. Mangione, however, is alive and awaiting trial. Apple Intelligence also falsely said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested after summarizing several articles from The New York Times about the subject.

The BBC has filed a complaint with Apple. “BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world. It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications.”

Apple has yet to respond to the RSF, but CEO Tim Cook has acknowledged that Apple Intelligence isn’t immune to hallucinations, the colloquial term used for when AI says something false or otherwise inaccurate.

It’s a common thread among all the major AIs. Google’s Gemini famously suggested using glue on a cheese pizza and once told a college student that they were “a stain on the universe” and to “please die” when asked about homework. X’s Grok also proclaimed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lost an election that hadn’t happened yet.

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Hello, my name is Joe and I am a tech blogger. My first real experience with tech came at the tender age of 6 when I started playing Final Fantasy IV (II on the SNES) on the family’s living room console. As a teenager, I cobbled together my first PC build using old parts from several ancient PCs, and really started getting into things in my 20s. I served in the US Army as a broadcast journalist. Afterward, I served as a news writer for XDA-Developers before I spent 11 years as an Editor, and eventually Senior Editor, of Android Authority. I specialize in gaming, mobile tech, and PC hardware, but I enjoy pretty much anything that has electricity running through it.

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