Apple is pulling AI-generated news summaries after the feature repeatedly produced the wrong headlines

Apple is pulling a feature that uses artificial intelligence to generate news summaries after it repeatedly posted headlines full of errors, drawing the ire of news organizations such as the BBC and the Washington Post.

The feature, released in the fall, generated headlines that were sometimes misleading or outright false. Apple announced Thursday that it will suspend the software while the company works on improvements.

CBC News contacted an Apple spokesperson for more information.

One of the headlines falsely claimed that Luigi Mangione, accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself. That was allegedly caused by the BBC, which in December contacted Apple about its concerns.

Other fake headlines claim that US Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth is “fired,” that Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio is “confirmed,” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “arrested.” None of them were true.

Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization that advocates for freedom of information, sent a statement last month urging Apple to pull the feature, saying it was “gravely concerned about the risks posed to the media by new artificial intelligence tools.”

Commenting on the Mangione headline incident, the agency said “this accident highlights the inability of AI systems to systematically publish quality information, even if it is based on journalistic sources.”