Apple solves broken news alerts by turning off the AI
- Reference: 1737117073
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/17/apple_intelligence_summaries_disabled/
- Source link:
As well as other tweaks to the platform, the update temporarily turns off News and Entertainment summaries, which will be welcomed by outlets like the BBC. The Beeb complained loudly when Apple Intelligence incorrectly summarized its stories.
It will also italicize text on the lock screen to make it easier to separate summaries from notifications. Additionally, it will warn users in the Settings app about potential errors and make it clearer that the function is still in beta. Users will also be able to disable notification summaries directly from the lock screen or Notification Center.
[1]
It's a start, but the company could go a lot further. Perhaps an Apple icon could indicate when Apple Intelligence has intervened in matters. Or it could make the feature something users opt into rather than one they must opt out of.
[2]Tim cooking up the dough as his Apple pay rises 18% to $74.6M
[3]Apple shrugs off BBC complaint with promise to 'further clarify' AI content
[4]Apple called on to ditch AI headline summaries after BBC debacle
[5]Apple Intelligence summary botches a headline, causing jitters in BBC newsroom
A BBC spokesperson [6]said : "We're pleased that Apple has listened to our concerns and is pausing the summarization feature for news. We look forward to working with them constructively on next steps. Our priority is the accuracy of the news we deliver to audiences which is essential to building and maintaining trust."
In December, an Apple Intelligence summary famously [7]botched a BBC headline by claiming that Luigi Mangione, a man arrested over the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thomson, had shot himself. This was not true, and certainly not what the BBC had written. A source at the BBC told The Register that it caused jitters in the newsroom and the corporation was determined to show it was not at fault.
[8]
Apple plans to turn the summaries for News and Entertainment back on once it has made the feature more reliable. While [9]the reputation of Apple Maps has improved, there is a risk that Apple Intelligence could stink up Cupertino if the feature remains a source of bad AI PR. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z4qMzReb0I4Tip_FruDqJgAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/14/tim_cook_apple_salary/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/07/apple_responds_bbc_complaint/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/20/apple_ai_headline_summaries/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/17/apple_intelligence_bbc_complaint/
[6] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5ggew08eyo
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/17/apple_intelligence_bbc_complaint/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z4qMzReb0I4Tip_FruDqJgAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/27/apple_fires_williamson_mapping/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Some of us...
Sorry but "it could make the feature something users opt into rather than one they must opt out of" so you are already a user since you haven't disabled it.
Re: Some of us...
I didn’t understand that, I never opted-out and the feature isn’t enabled for me
Re: Some of us...
I think it's linked to the newer phones only — an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 is required.
So now it's not just that the newer phones don't provide a compelling incentive to upgrade; they come with an active disincentive.
Not only phones
Apple Silicon Mac's also have it.
This
https://appleinsider.com/inside/apple-intelligence/tips/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligence-report-in-macos
Shows how to turn it off. It wasn't enabled on my M1 MacBook Pro.
"Summaries will return when Apple Intelligence has 'improved' "...
I think the intelligence of their customers will improve long before that of their 'A.I.'.
Ai has a place...
I just wish big tech firms would listen to us telling it where that place is rather than trying to shoehorn it into every feature, facet and function as an excuse to do something with all the data they've hoover up.
(Anyone promoting AI should be required by law to explain the difference between data, information, knowledge and wisdom without resorting to a dictionary or online searches).
Why?
Most news alerts are already summaries of the articles. How does a janky AI prone to hallucinating add any valve?
Re: Why?
Add value for You - none.
Allow the AI creators* to change independent news output - Priceless
* a most trustful philanthropic group /sarc.
Re: Why?
I'm not sure how you fix this. If what they are doing is generating an alternative punch line based on the entire story then of course AI is always going to randomly make shit up.
Instead, if the BBC provided me an option to not send notifications for sport or entertainment stories then it would reduce the bother of too many notifications. I don't have either of those in my favourite topics so why do they think I need real-time notification? Working that one out does not require AI...
I was thinking today of a use case for 'AI'. I had to edit several design drawings and it was basically the same simple edit multiple times. I did what I could with copy/paste but it would have been really nice if the tool I was using (Libre Office Draw) could've seen what I was doing and offered to repeat the process across all four pages. Instead of it taking over an hour it could have taken me five minutes.
Then again that's a bit reminiscent of Clippy and that didn't end well.
Presumably you'd be happy if it had done 90% of the job so, after manual corrections, it took you fifteen minutes?
We're all devs. So, first of all, we'd have scripted it ourselves (which may or may not have taken less than an hour). But secondly we're perfectionist so can't see that imperfect automation would still be a boon to non-programmers.
I compare it to machine translation: it doesn't have to be flawless to be useful. Even flawed, machine translation brings translation into the reach of many of us who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. AI based automation could do the same for non-devs. If it runs and does most of what you want, that's a benefit.
AI version:
Apple has apologised to the BBC and others, deeply and humbly, for any ... sorry, I can't keep a straight face ...
Now they need to be in court and legal action taken.
Large amounts of damages awarded and payment enforced.
This "oh we made a mistake and are sorry" is for some reason acceptable in Tech but not any other sector.
"Perhaps an Apple icon could indicate when Apple Intelligence has intervened in matters"
They already do - just look at the icon at the start of an AI summary.... What this also highlights is perhaps the icon they're using isn't the best.
Anyone remember...
The first 18 months of Apple Maps?
Re: Anyone remember...
The first 18 months? They still think my house and the three neighbouring ones are in the middle of a school sports field a quarter of a mile away even though I've submitted corrections.
The usual Apple approach is to implement features years after everyone else, once they get them to actually work reliably.
Maybe they could try that?
This is why corporates need to avoid the 'AI PC'.
Enterprise systems should not have experimental components.
Enterprise systems should not have experimental components.
And auditable systems should not contain black boxes.
Our intelligence has had to be switched off
Because it's not actually intelligent yet. Hard for them to claim they never expected stuff like this to happen, when hallucinations are a known part of the game.
And best of luck trying to debug something that relies on billions of stored textual tokens and gigabytes of statistical weightings, and therefore you can't predict what it's going to output. The only way to guarantee that the output 100% reflects the news source is going to be to copy it verbatim. But then you'd be on the line for copyright infringement, so you're going to have to run it through the magic AI summariser, which will always introduce random errors
BBC worried about news accuracy
Since when??
Inquiring minds really, really, want to know
Some of us...
Never enabled it in the first place. Deep Joy.