{"id":17588,"date":"2025-01-08T02:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T02:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=17588"},"modified":"2025-01-08T02:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T02:11:00","slug":"ai-falsely-outs-rafael-nadal-as-gay-will-this-be-first-of-many-fake-outings-of-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=17588","title":{"rendered":"AI falsely outs Rafael Nadal as gay. Will this be first of many fake \u2018outings\u2019 of athletes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial ‘Intelligence’ screws up again in a false BBC news alert about tennis star and Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal.<\/p>\n

\n
\"RafaelRafael Nadal waves to the crowd as he leaves the court during the Paris Olympics. An AI alert falsely claimed that Nadal had come out as gay. | Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports<\/div>\n
\n

Did you hear that tennis star\u00a0Rafael Nadal\u00a0came out as gay?<\/p>\n

It was news to me and I cover this stuff for a living, but some BBC News users late last month got an alert saying that Nadal had indeed declared he was gay.<\/p>\n

The problem is that Nadal did NOT come out. It was the\u00a0figment of the imagination\u00a0of the oxymoronic \u201cApple Intelligence\u201d feature on iPhones that generated an alert to the BBC News app.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis false notification seemingly misinterpreted an article about Brazilian tennis player Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, who is gay,\u201d\u00a0Euronews reported.<\/p>\n

Reis da Silva became the\u00a0only current active out gay tennis player\u00a0to come out as gay, when on Dec. 7 he shared an Instagram post celebrating the birthday of his boyfriend, actor and model Gui Sampaio Ricardo.\u00a0The AI program somehow thought \u201cNadal\u201d and \u201cReis da Silva\u201d were the same person.<\/p>\n

There are other possible reasons why AI got the idea that Nadal is gay. There was a 2017 play that had the\u00a0tennis legend married to a man. And the time\u00a0Nadal played strip tennis against male models. And maybe it was\u00a0Outsports once wondering if Nadal\u2019s glute muscles were just too big.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, AI got it wrong. Again.<\/p>\n

This was not the only recent hallucination the Apple Intelligence feature had regarding sports.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

An \u201cAI-generated alert\u00a0about Luke Littler incorrectly declared him the [world darts] champion before the final match against Michael van Gerwen had even taken place,\u201d Euronews said. \u201cThis misleading summary was based on a BBC article covering Littler\u2019s semifinal victory. The false notification was sent to BBC News app users, caused widespread confusion as the final was yet to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BBC was pissed, in its understated way,\u00a0saying in a statement: \u201cIt is essential that Apple fixes this problem urgently \u2014 as this has happened multiple times. As the most trusted news media organization in the world, it is crucial that audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications.\u201d<\/p>\n

As more and more news organizations use AI to generate alerts or news summaries, this problem will almost certainly continue.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

I wonder how many more well-known athletes will falsely be reported as coming out as gay. It\u2019s easy to see it happening, given\u00a0how wrong AI can often be<\/a>. It\u2019s interesting that the BBC said errors have happened \u201cmultiple times,\u201d which begs the question of why the service is even being used in the first place.<\/p>\n

After regularly getting wrong answers to simple queries that now populate the top of most Google searches via its AI bot, I have learned to be skeptical about anything it says. Instead, I seek out legitimate news sources. That includes Outsports, which would have been all over any news that someone like Nadal had come out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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