Apple Fixes AI Speech-to-Text Error That Linked ‘Racist’ to ‘Trump’
Apple is under fire after a bizarre glitch in its speech-to-text feature.
On Tuesday (Feb 25), some iPhone users discovered that when they said the word “racist” into the device's Dictation tool, it would instead transcribe it as “Trump”—a mix-up that has left both Apple and the internet baffled.
The tech giant quickly addressed the issue, attributed it to phonetic overlap between the two words, and assured that a fix is in the works, The New York Times reported.
John Burkey, founder of Wonderrush.ai and a former member of Apple’s Siri team, said the issue seemed to start after an update to Apple’s servers. Burkey, who still keeps in touch with the team, noted that this could be a key factor behind the glitch.
However, he doubted Apple’s AI training data was to blame for the issue. Instead, he pointed out that how the word corrected itself suggested the problem wasn’t just a technical glitch. Burkey says there’s likely a piece of software code buried somewhere in Apple’s system that’s causing iPhones to swap out “racist” for “Trump” when spoken.
“This smells like a serious prank,” he shared. “The only question is: Did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?”
Apple’s AI slip-up is just the latest in a string of stumbles since rolling out its Apple Intelligence system last year. Just last month, the company had to disable one of its key features—news aggregation and summarization—after it started spitting out inaccurate summaries of headlines from multiple media outlets.
