Apple has temporarily halted its AI summaries of news headlines following the distribution of erroneous notifications, including a false claim that tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay. The decision to suspend these AI-generated notifications comes in the wake of a controversy described as a "serious prank" by a former Apple employee. However, experts, such as Peter Bell, a professor of speech technology, contest this explanation, branding it "just not plausible."
The suspension follows a series of missteps by Apple’s AI-powered technologies. Last month, Apple faced criticism from the BBC and other news organizations, prompting the company to retract another AI feature. Compounding these issues, Apple's Dictation tool recently made headlines when it typed "Trump" instead of "racist" upon user input. Apple attributed this error to a "phonetic overlap" between the two words.
However, Prof Bell challenged Apple's explanation, stating that the words "racist" and "Trump" are not phonetically similar enough to confuse a sophisticated AI system. He suggested that the anomaly might result from unauthorized alterations to the underlying software.
"It probably points to somebody that's got access to the process." – Peter Bell, professor of speech technology at the University of Edinburgh
Apple is actively addressing these concerns, with steps underway to rectify its speech-to-text tool. An Apple spokesperson confirmed this development:
"We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today."
The BBC's inability to replicate the error suggests Apple's corrective measures are already effective.
In response to these challenges, Apple's CEO Tim Cook has signaled potential shifts in the company's policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This consideration follows President Donald Trump's recent call to end DEI programs.
Looking ahead, Apple has committed to investing $500 billion in the United States over the upcoming four years. This ambitious plan includes the establishment of a substantial data center in Texas, designed to bolster Apple Intelligence—a new AI-powered initiative. Prof Bell emphasized that Apple's English language model is trained on extensive datasets, which should ideally ensure high accuracy in its operations.
"This smells like a serious prank." – A former Apple employee