In recent weeks, those receiving news alerts on their Apple phones will have been told that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering the UnitedHealthcare's chief executive officer in New York, had shot himself; that the Spanish tennis star Rafa Nadal had come out as gay; that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested; and that Luke Littler had won the Professional Darts Corporation's World Darts Championship hours before the final took place.
Four of the five news alerts were credited to the BBC and the other alert was credited to The New York Times, two very reputable sources of news.
The problem was all five snippets of news were fake news (though Luke Littler did go onto win the darts championship). And all five items of news were never reported by the BBC or The New York Times.
Apple uses artificial intelligence (AI) to digest news worldwide and to draft its news alerts. Clearly, Apple's technology, despite being rolled out, isn't fit for purpose or at best hasn't been sufficiently tested.
Apple's solution to the problem is for future news alerts to be marked up as AI-generated. I'm not sure this is a solution as I suspect people won't read the small print about how its news is generated. I expect a further proliferation of fake news particularly when algorithms are manipulated for political purposes. Elon Musk quite recently founded an AI company, xAI. What can go wrong?!
Similar criticisms have been levelled at Google in how its search engine results are generated. Often Google's search results are headed by an AI overviews, many of which have been shown to be inaccurate.
20
25 comments
Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta, have just announced that they are getting rid of fact checkers!
No need for fact checks now that there is trustworthy president π±
@EnyojLife The President Elect must be loving developments.
@spunkycumfun
It makes me sick π€’
With AI anything can go horribly wrong, it's so terrible about all of these FAKE NEWS ALERTS. And the man up above is spreading them as fast as he can too on his X!!
It's truly sad that life has come to this, when we so clearly depend on reputable news sources to keep us apprised of everything happening in the world. That's why I usually only trust one news outlet!!
I hope your Tuesday continues to treat you well..
We need trustworthy news outlets.
@sexstarvedme1966 But facts need to be made sense of.
@sexstarvedme1966 Unlike you, I like reading news analysis.
Book that nicely summaries role of information in society. Absolutely worth of reading
I've heard of the book but haven't read it yet.
@spunkycumfun
It will be worth of your time and money.
Religion, witch hunt, communism, fascism, nationalism, populism as a history of information and who and how controls information.
@spunkycumfun, @OldStandardDudeX
I agree great book. Evolution of society as a history of information
@EnyojLife That mix sounds brilliant, right up my street!
@EnyojLife Probably a much drier read than Yuval Noah Yurari's book, Manuel Castells' trilogy on the network society is good, though admittedly I've only read one of his three books. The Spanish social scientist links the rise of information technology to capitalism.
@spunkycumfun
Harari goes back to Sumerians and clay tablets. And has nice argument that printing press invention started inquisition rather then scientific revolution that happened 100 years later. He has arguments that I canβt verify but his logic flows naturally and without big contradictions.
It the same as with his two previous book. Especially the first one that I liked the most.
Anyway Iβm engineer not historian or sociologist so I as Pope said βWho am I to judgeβ
@EnyojLife You're very much tempting me to read the book.
@spunkycumfun
Give it try
Donβt feel pressure π
@EnyojLife The book is on my birthday present list.
@spunkycumfun
Happy birthday whenever it is
@spunkycumfun
Iβll try to get hold of Manuel Castellsβ books that you recommended
Somehow he and books are new for me. But 20 years ago I was busy working ππ€·ββοΈ
@EnyojLife My birthday falls in August.
@EnyojLife Manuel Castells wrote three books on the network society. You may be better off getting a summary of his argument from Wikipedia. Castells is quite a dry read, which isn't surprising given Spanish is his first language.
@spunkycumfun
A long wait. Until August things could change dramatically. I mean deteriorate.
@spunkycumfun
I did read summary and it could be much harder read than Nexus
@EnyojLife Unfortunately very true!
Dumbing down of humanity continues β¦ incorporating new tech β¦ the less informed the people are (stupid and/or ignorant), the easier to manipulate.
Funny how ignorant boomers were raised to believe that communism is bad, yet now theyβre embracing Putin. π
@NightBloom95
You're far from ignorant
I would describe Putin more of an authoritarian nationalist than a communist.
Interesting, I saw none of those stories, but then I don't pay a lot of attention to Apple News notifications - I get most of my news from the New York Times and NPR.
The least inconsequential of these fake news snippets, Luke Littler winning the PDC World Darts Championship hours before the final took place is perhaps the most revealing.
Luke Littler had made the final but lost in the final the year before. Luke Littler was the favourite to win this year which he did. But Apple's algorithms were so off target, it's suggested that AI got mixed up with last year and Luke Littler winning the semi-final this year. It's quite pathetic.
Having said that, all the other fake news were off target but all were given credence by being allegedly sourced by the BBC and The New York Times. It's worrying times. Fake news delivered by real news sources.
BE CAREFUL about criticizing First Buddy/President/Prime Minister/Chancellor Musk. It could land you on the list of requiring special attention!
He's making the news on a daily basis here with his very ill-informed views of Britain. As well as trashing the Prime Minister, he's also targeted one minister whose safety is now further compromised. The politician is Jess Phillips who has spent most of her career campaigning for abused women and children. His words were disgusting; now she's a target for the far right.
It seems he does very little research before he tweets. But he's super-rich so he probably thinks he's exempt from such niceties! His words peddle hatred which often end up in violence.
Sorry to give a serious reply to your tongue-in-cheek comment.
Its 1984 all over again.
It seems George Orwell was quite prophetic.
In Elon we trust π±π
As Washington Post used to say βdemocracy dies in the darkβ until boss killed βwrongβ presidential endorsements. Last time because of news in WP he paid dearly for his other businesses.
Democracy is very much under attack worldwide. Democratic freedoms lost won't be easily re-gained.
@spunkycumfun
Unfortunately true
It pains me greatly
@EnyojLife I can well understand why it pains you. It pains me too.
@spunkycumfun
Nice comments on your post. As always.
Iβm terrified where humanity is going. Someone somewhere said: βWhen there is no solution, there is always warβ.
Good luck to all of us.
I recommend book thatβs nice journey through history of information
@EnyojLife It seems we're going to a very dark place.
I keep telling friends and acquaintances that AIs are still in a very early stage of development and make plenty of mistakes if their responses and suggestions are not supervised by humans. However, there is too much hype and marketing from AI companies, and many people are misled into believing they are the pinnacle of technology; perhaps one day they will be, but that day is neither today nor tomorrow.
Companies seem almost in a race to roll out AI in the market place.
And that it's not good for Ai job in the future
Apple has now scrapped its AI-generated news alerts.
@spunkycumfun we'll see what happens in the future for Ais
@Alfedofernanz200 We will see for better or worse.
The AI idiots, led by ELtwirpo Musk, still have not figured out that old old saying "Garbage In, Garbage Out". On reflection, perhaps the South African Idiot has figured it out and is very busy tossing garbage in. The internet seems to be destroying the news business and even the very idea of news.
Elon Musk has been insulting Britain and Germany almost on a daily basis recently.
@spunkycumfun Astonished to say this but I believe he may well have a larger and more fragile ego than the orange toddler.
@justskin1 I think you are right. Their bromance surely won't last long given the size of their egos.
Apple unintelligence
Quite!
Come ON! We should know that an apple that just fell off of a tree is smarter than Apple Intell.
@justskin1 yet that apple only requires gravity π
I have a smart phone and I have news and all sorts of things disabled because I do not want the negativity. Or fake news. AI is handy and not smart enough
Unfortunately most news is bad news!
@spunkycumfun As the News Business has said for centuries. "Who cares or pays for good news?"
@justskin1 It tends to be local news that has the most good news.
@spunkycumfun in my area of the US, local news guided by principle If it bleads it Leads
@bignicktx Local news is dying here.
@spunkycumfun struggling here, and national, extremist syndicates have been buying up and incorporating under for example Sinclair, where they push their agenda under guise of being from local sources
@bignicktx A lot of local newspapers are owned by 'national' companies like Reach.
Doesn't surprise me. I don't believe any news source anymore. They all are filled with biased garbage. Whose gonna take responsibility when they're not held accountable, anyways?
All media outlets are inherently biased. It's best when consumers of news are aware of such biases.
@sexstarvedme1966 It's not easy separating fact from opinion.
To be honest, I am not so concerned about AI generated fake news. In my opinion it's not any worse than what goes on in media and politics anyway.
Fake news, distorted news, and the absence of (that is, banned) news is a common phenomenon with most news outlets nowadays, and the politicians are not far behind in perpetuating this sad state of affairs.
Journalism, or the fifth estate as we idealize it, died a long time ago. I remember being in uni when I first became aware of the complicity of the media in manufacturing consent. At the time it was the French and British radio stations promoting the Timisoara massacre hoax used to trigger the fall of the Romanian regime, then the US media fawning over the Kuwaiti incubator hoax to justify the take over of the Arabian Gulf petroleum fields, then the Weapons of Mass Destruction hoax that led to the 1mil death toll in Iraq, and recently the October 7 Beheaded Babies hoax promoted to justify the ongoing genocide in Palestine...
I'll take AI fake news over this any day.
The thing about the internet is that one can bypass BBC NPR NYT WP etc who are all complicit and get to alternative/independent/investigative journalists/researchers/whistleblowers/commentators for more accurate and/or valuable information.
I agree that the mass media has quite a chequered past record, but the rise of social media as reliable news outlets seems more problematic not least because fake news can spread fast.
@spunkycumfun Social media is just that, a medium, just like ink on paper it can either be quality or scum. The benefit digital media affords us is that it levels the playing field, as it does not cost much to broadcast/print, and it allows consumers to actively search locate and follow independent journalists or commentators that have a hard time publishing their stuff within the framework of traditional mass media, or they got fed up with the limitations/censorship in the established media outlets and created their own channels. And sometimes they are able to actually use advanced tech to source or analyze news data in ways that traditional media are not quick or willing to use. Eg. WΞΉkΞΉ1eΞ±ks, Forensic Architecture.
@missthee I can understand your argument that social media 'democratises' publishing in that all of us with access to the internet can publish. But I'm referring to how control of the popular social media companies are in the hands of a few and how those owners manipulate their algorithms etc to spread news.
Musk is totally out of control. Sticks his nose into everything in a negative way.
Elon Musk is certainly making his mark here in Britain. He's trashing Keir Starmer and the Labour Government by the day with his tweets. I know he's super rich and I know he owns the Twitter/X platform, but his source of power is that he's got the ear of Donald Trump.
Elon Musk isn't very well informed with what what's going on here but that doesn't matter given how far his voice is projected. He claims free speech, I say the freedom to spread lies and hatred.
@spunkycumfun Trump just said he isnβt ruling out using military force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal. And he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico and name it the Gulf of America.
@pacnwlover42 That's almost a declaration of war! None of this was trailed widely in his election campaign.