BBC complains to Apple over AI-generated headline

December 14, 2024 at 9:50 am

The BBC filed a complaint against Apple after an AI-generated headline about UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect Luigi Mangione was sent to an unknown number of people and attributed to the British broadcaster. A BBC spokesman said the corporation contacted Apple “to raise this concern and resolve the issue.”

“BBC News is the most trusted news outlet in the world,” the spokesman also said. “It’s important to us that our audience can trust any information or journalism published on our behalf, including alerts.”

Earlier this week, an AI-generated news summary from the BBC read: “Luigi Mangione shoots himself; Syrian Mother Hopes Assad Will Pay the Price; South Korean police raided Yoon Suk Yeol’s office.”

While the other two headlines were accurate, the first was not.

This is not the first time AI-generated news outlets have produced false headlines in this way. The broadcaster said three articles on three different topics from the New York Times were grouped together on November 21; the resulting mix-up led some to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

The Apple News feature is available to iPhone users running iOS 18.1 or later on all iPhone 16s, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max.