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The unintentional fun of Apple Intelligence’s summary notifications

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The unintentional fun of Apple Intelligence’s summary notifications

What happened? Artificial intelligence is still a long way from the human-like thinking machines of science fiction. For example, Apple’s recently released Apple Intelligence tends to act very stupidly, especially when it comes to notification summaries. But at least they’re unintentionally funny most of the time.

Apple finally introduced AI features with the release of iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 last month. It offers the usual capabilities like assisted authoring tools, image creation, photo enhancements, and more.

Another Apple Intelligence feature is the ability to summarize notifications. Cupertino says summaries allow users to scan long or stacked notifications with important details right on the Lock Screen, for example when a group chat is particularly active.

As with many things, AI often struggles with these summaries because it often fails to understand context and human expressions. As the summary below shows, being abandoned is a particularly difficult experience for anyone.

This isn’t the first time Apple Intelligence has delivered news of a breakup in a less-than-sensitive manner. Last month, a New York-based developer accepted summary statement: “I am no longer in a relationship; he wants stuff from the apartment.”

The dating-related summaries also seem a little off-kilter in general, though one can imagine the following being read in a robotic voice by a Data-like android prototype.

Apple Intelligence also can’t seem to understand when someone uses the term “killed” when it doesn’t literally mean killing someone. CNET notes A summary of someone saying their personal trainer “killed” them emerged rather surprisingly: “Trainer allegedly murdered, we need to go to hospital.”

There was also this gem from someone who said the hike they took nearly killed them.

Here are a few more weird summaries.

Maybe it was constipation?

Two unrelated pieces of information or a notification that the zombie apocalypse has begun?

Another clear warning that we would all be dead soon disappointed South Baltimore’s Amtrak customers.

Tim Cook said Apple Intelligence notification summaries “changed” his life. The Apple boss will always exaggerate the effectiveness of one of his company’s products, but unless he’s talking about how those products make him laugh more, that’s pretty far-fetched even for a CEO.

Tag: Thom Holmes

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