Apple's AI instructions literally said 'Do not hallucinate' — BBC false alerts persisted anyway
GaryMarcus · x · 2026-10-24
Gary Marcus amplified a critique of Apple's hallucination problem: Apple Intelligence's system instructions, found in a 2024 macOS beta, literally said "Do not hallucinate."
It didn't work — Apple's iPhone news alerts kept placing false headlines under the BBC's name, and Apple switched the feature off in January 2025. On a panel, Marcus argued the model "doesn't actually understand what a hallucination is," so instructing it to stop making things up is futile.
More from AGI Musings
- Nintendo's Miyamoto says AI won't make human creativity obsolete: 'a role will always remain for us' — PAstynome · 2026-10-24
- AI-written code share points to full coding autonomy by spring 2028, argues TheZvi — TheZvi · 2026-10-24
- DAOs 2.0: smart contracts plus AI judgment may return, but agents buying their own compute raises safety concerns — pzakin · 2026-10-24
- Anil Seth's 109-page BBS special on conscious AI free to download today only — anilkseth · 2026-10-24
- Deedy Weighs the Abliterated Model Debate: Liberty vs Paternalism in AI Safeguards — deedydas · 2026-10-24
- Ryan Greenblatt Argues 'Neuralese' Latent Reasoning Would Sharply Raise AI Misalignment Risk — shakoistsLog · 2026-10-24