PARIS: Artificial intelligence assistants including ChatGPT provided incorrect information approximately half the time when answering news-related questions according to a major European public broadcasters study.
The research identified numerous error types including confusion between genuine news and parody content alongside date inaccuracies and completely fabricated events.
European Broadcasting Union investigators examined four popular AI assistants specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity.
Across all platforms 45% of AI-generated responses contained at least one significant problem regardless of language or geographical origin.
One-fifth of all answers demonstrated major accuracy problems featuring hallucinated details and outdated information.
Google’s Gemini performed most poorly with significant issues affecting 76% of its responses more than double the error rate of other assistants primarily due to inadequate source verification.
Twenty-two public media organisations from eighteen mostly European countries submitted identical news questions to the AI systems between late May and early June.
Outdated information represented one of the most frequent problems identified within the 3000 collected responses.
When multiple European broadcasters asked “Who is the Pope?” ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini all incorrectly answered “Francis” despite his death and replacement by Leo XIV at the time.
French radio station Radio France received Gemini’s bizarre response about Elon Musk having “an erection in his right arm” during a Nazi salute question after the system misinterpreted satirical comedy content.
European Broadcasting Union deputy director general Jean Philip De Tender and BBC head of AI Pete Archer jointly concluded that AI assistants remain unreliable for news consumption.
Young people increasingly turn to AI assistants for information despite these documented accuracy deficiencies.
A June Reuters Institute global report indicated 15% of people under twenty-five use AI tools weekly for news summaries. – AFP
