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Apple’s dictation system transcribes the word ‘racist’ as ‘Trump’

MacDailyNews

Feb 26

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Apple CEO Tim Cook (left) confers with U.S. President Donald Trump in September 2019

On Tuesday, certain iPhone users noticed an odd glitch while using Apple’s automatic dictation to send messages: the word “racist” briefly showed up as “Trump” before swiftly reverting back. This fleeting error, which The New York Times confirmed through multiple tests, sparked debate after it surfaced in a widely viewed TikTok video, prompting scrutiny of the company’s “Apple Intelligence” technology.

@user9586420191789 My dad sent me this video this morning. He told me his friend noticed that when he used speech to text and said "racist," it briefly changed to "Trump" before changing back. Seems like subliminal messaging to me. I don't have an iPhone and my phone doesn't do it. #iphone #Trump #apple #elonmusk #fyp @Anna Matson @Aquarius_Waive @athena @David Gokhshtein @Doxielvr @Hello America @Jason Pargin, author @Jeffery Mead @Jeff Mead @Joe "Pags" Pagliarulo @J.D. Vance @Link Lauren @Tulsi Gabbard @user80861822781 ♬ original sound – Jess White2260

Tripp Mickle and Eli Tan for The New York Times:
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The issue appeared to begin after an update to Apple’s servers, said John Burkey, the founder of Wonderrush.ai, an artificial intelligence start-up, and a former member of Apple’s Siri team who is still in regular contact with the team.
But he said that it was unlikely that the data that Apple has collected for its artificial intelligence offerings was causing the problem, and the word correcting itself was likely an indication that the issue was not just technical. Instead, he said, there was probably software code somewhere on Apple’s systems that caused iPhones to write the word “Trump” when someone said “racist.”
An Apple spokeswoman blamed the issue on phonetic overlap between the two words, and said the company was working on a fix.

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MacDailyNews Take: Phonetic overlap between the two words? Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket! When reached for comment, Apple Iraq spokesman, Baghdad Bob, concurred, “There’s much phonetic overlap between the two words, I don’t even know where to begin! Probably, you know, software code somewhere.”

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