Apple blasted after AI-generated news summary falsely claims Pete Hegseth was ‘fired’: ‘Wildly irresponsible’
Apple is facing heavy criticism over its much-hyped artificial intelligence tool’s habit of spitting out fake news in its AI-generated summaries – including an inaccurate alert about Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth getting “fired.”
On Wednesday, the Apple Intelligence summaries — which are sent as alerts to iPhones — not only falsely declared that Hegseth, who had a Senate confirmation hearing, was mysteriously “fired;” but that President-elect Donald Trump tariffs were impacting inflation; and that Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio and US Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi were “confirmed,” according to a screenshot taken by Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler.
None of the details included in the AI-generated summary, which was likely sent out to millions of iPhone users, were correct – nor did they accurately reflect the Washington Post’s actual real-time news alerts.
“This is my periodic rant that Apple Intelligence is so bad that today it got every fact wrong its [sic] AI a summary of @washingtonpost.com news alerts,” Fowler wrote on social media platform Bluesky.
“It’s wildly irresponsible that Apple doesn’t turn off summaries for news apps until it gets a bit better at this AI thing.”
Apple Intelligence debuted last fall and has gradually ramped up features available to its users.
The new AI software has been a major selling point as Apple rolls out its next generations of iPhones after a period of stagnating sales.
Apple representatives did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
“News organizations have vigorously complained to Apple about this, but we have no power over what iOS does to the accurate and expertly crafted alerts we sent out,” Fowler also wrote.
Several news outlets have publicly called out Apple for regurgitating false information through its AI-generated summaries.
Last month, the BBC said it had contacted Apple to complain after Apple Intelligence had falsely claimed that BBC News reported that Luigi Mangione, who was arrested for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.
“It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications,” a BBC spokesperson said at the time
In November, a ProPublica editor shared a screenshot of an instance in which Apple Intelligence made the blatantly false claim that the New York Times had reported Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was under arrest.
Earlier this month, Apple said an update to address bugs in the news summary feature would be sent out “in the coming weeks.”
“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback,” Apple said in a statement at the time, according to the BBC.
“A software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence,” the statement added. “We encourage users to report a concern if they view an unexpected notification summary.”
Apple isn’t the only Big Tech giant that has come under fire for inaccurate AI-generated content over the last year.
As The Post reported last year, Google was pilloried after its “AI Overviews” feature in search results dispensed many bizarre answers – including encouraging users to eat rocks for nutrition.
