Apple Takes Heat Over False AI-Generated ‘News’ Alert: ‘Luigi Mangione Shoots Himself’

Pennsylvania State Police via AP

Apple is facing criticism after its artificial intelligence service generated a BBC News alert that falsely claimed suspected assassin Luigi Mangione had shot himself. Mangione has been charged with murder in New York after police say he gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week.

This week, BBC subscribers were sent a message to their phones that read, “Luigi Mangione shoots himself.” The 26-year-old did not shoot himself and is being held in Pennsylvania while awaiting extradition to New York.

Two other news summaries were sent out by the BBC with the false notification were correct.

BBC

The outlet reported of the issue:

Apple Intelligence, launched in the UK earlier this week, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to summarise and group together notifications.

This week, the AI-powered summary falsely made it appear BBC News had published an article claiming Luigi Mangione, the man arrested following the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson in New York, had shot himself. He has not.

A spokesperson from the BBC said the corporation had contacted Apple “to raise this concern and fix the problem.”

Apple declined to comment for the BBC’s story but a spokesman for the company said it had concerns the AI service could hurt its credibility.

“BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world,” the person said. “It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications.”

As The Verge noted, this week’s mishap with Apple Intelligence is not the first with a media outlet and AI:

Other examples of the AI summaries missing the mark that we’ve seen have turned “that hike almost killed me” into “attempted suicide” or a Ring camera appearing to report that people are surrounding someone’s home.