The City of Milford issued a statement recently warning customers not to use AI-summarization on their mobile devices when reviewing communications from the city. The city is finding that customers are not getting important details in official messages.
“We’ve become aware that an increasing number of mobile devices are using AI-generated message summarization features,” a release on the city website reads. “While these tools can be helpful in certain contexts, they often omit or misinterpret important details in our official messages.”
According to the release, customers who relied on AI-generated summaries rather than reading or listening to the full message, missed key information, including final payment deadlines, leading to avoidable service disconnections.
The city suggests disabling AI-summarizing features in messaging apps, if possible. If not possible, be sure to read or listen to full messages sent by the City of Milford. The increased use of AI-summarization is a growing concern for many as more and more people rely on the programs to get information.
“There is growing concern that people are relying on these programs when they are far from perfect,” the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence reports. “For instance, when summarizing your email, AI might get details like the date or location wrong. Although that seems like a minor error, it can have significant consequences.”
The City of Milford’s release stated that the goal of messages sent from them is to keep residents informed and avoid disruption in service. Questions can be answered by calling their Customer Service Office at 302-422-6616.
