The Telegraph jumps the gun on World War III

Trigger-happy Taiwan headline sparks instant apocalypse vibes

World War III might have begun this week, according to British broadsheet The Telegraph.

Users browsing the news on the Google smartphone app found themselves presented with the alarming headline, "China invades Taiwan: Japan steps in."

What the what now? – click to enlarge

There was no other context, just a shot of an F-35 aircraft in flight with its gear down. Could this be the beginning of the end? The prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has been a longstanding concern among experts.

A worried source in Japan told The Register they interpreted it "as if the invasion had already happened."

It hadn't. The Internet Archive showed that several hurried edits had been made to the headline of the story, which was actually a hypothetical piece speculating on what Japan might do if China invaded Taiwan.

The Telegraph has form here. In 2017, the newspaper killed off Prince Philip (Queen Elizabeth II's husband) before a presumably horrified sub-editor pulled the story. The Duke was actually retiring from royal duties. He died in 2021 at the age of 99.

The Register contacted The Telegraph to understand how the headline found its way into the news feed, but we have yet to receive a response.

As for the article, the headline was changed from "China invades Taiwan: Japan steps in" to "If China invades Taiwan, what could Japan do?" but not before the alarmist original had circulated online.

Although The Telegraph – home, we must add, for a few ex-vultures – has not confirmed what happened, the mistake is likely human, and so quite different to Apple Intelligence's mangled story summary attributed to the BBC, claiming that Luigi Mangione, a man arrested over the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thomson, had shot himself.

In this case, no AI was required. The headline – whether intended as clickbait for a theoretical scenario or mistakenly read as breaking news of a major conflict – appears to have been the work of an overzealous staffer and was quickly corrected.

Perhaps it is time to update the old saying: To err is AI. To really screw things up requires a human. ®