Latest iOS 18.3 beta release tells iPhone users when AI might have sent them fake news

Just before last Christmas the BBC and some other news platforms were complaining that iPhone users running Apple Intelligence were receiving AI-created summarized notifications of news events that were disseminating made-up news. Some iPhone users had received a notification with an AI-created summary based on a news article published by the BBC. The notification incorrectly stated that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street, had shot himself.

Another AI-created notification summary, this one including stories published in The New York Times, falsely said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested. Apple admitted that the problem existed; earlier this month the tech giant said that it was working on a change to the software that would make it clearer to users when a summarized notification is the work of Apple Intelligence.

iOS 18.3 beta 3 attempts to notify iPhone users about AI’s propensity to make errors when summarizing notifications

Apple just released iOS 18.3 beta 3 and the update includes changes Apple has made to summarized notifications for news. To enable the feature go to Settings > Notifications and tap on “Summarize Notification.” From the Summarize Notification page you can toggle on or off the feature from the top of the page. When you enable the feature for the first time, Apple will send a “Summarize Notifications” landing page that makes it clear that this is a beta feature.

iOS 18.3 beta 3 includes improvements to AI-based Summarized Notifications.

Apple makes changes to notification summaries in iOS 18.3 beta 3. | Image credit-PhoneArena

On the “Summarize Notifications” landing page Apple writes, “This beta feature will occasionally make mistakes that could misrepresent the meaning of the original notification.” From this landing page you can tap the blue “Choose notifications to summarize” option and you’ll be able to choose to receive these notifications from different groups of apps that are installed on your iPhone.

You can heed the warning from the page reminding you that some summaries could misrepresent the actual news, or you can disable the feature. To do that, go to Settings > Notifications and tap on “Summarize Notification.” From the Summarize Notification page, you can toggle off the feature from the top of the screen, or go through individual apps to toggle off the notification summaries.

Improvements made to Summarized Notifications help uers find possible fake news.

iOS 18.3 beta 3 brings a new italicized look to Summarized Notifications. | Image credit-PhoneArena

Apple also added a new way to quickly disable notification summaries from a notification received on the Lock Screen. Let’s say you want to stop receiving such summarized notifications from Fox News. The next time you get a notification from Fox News that has been summarized, swipe left on it, tap on options, and press Turn Off Summaries.

After installing iOS 18.3 beta 3, summarized notifications will be displayed with italicized text. This will indicate that such notifications are generated by AI as opposed to regular notifications which are not italicized. Additionally, since notifications from apps in the News and Entertainment category are the most likely to be summarized incorrectly by AI, apps that fall into this segment will not offer summarized notifications indefinitely. Apple will work on a new way to create summarize notifications from such apps that do not twist the truth and will include it in a future update.

How to install iOS 18.3 beta 3 if you’re already using iOS 18 beta software on your iPhone

With the changes, Apple is making it obvious that some AI-generated notification summaries are going to have incorrect news which means that users should take the information with the proverbial grain of salt. In other words, the update won’t keep errors from happening but it will warn users that such errors do occur. This is one of the limitations of using AI which has a tendency to “hallucinate.”

If you are currently running the iOS 18 beta program, go to Settings > General > Software Update and follow the directions to install iOS 18.3 beta 3.

Latest iOS 18.3 beta release tells iPhone users when AI might have sent them fake news

iOS 18.3 beta 3 attempts to notify iPhone users about AI’s propensity to make errors when summarizing notifications

How to install iOS 18.3 beta 3 if you’re already using iOS 18 beta software on your iPhone

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