Apple Voice Dictation Bug Substitutes 'Trump' for 'Racist'
Apple's iPhone voice dictation feature reportedly substituted the word 'Trump' for 'racist' due to a speech recognition bug, acknowledged by the company as caused by phonetic overlap. A former Apple Siri team member suggested the error could have resulted from an internal prank.
What happened
Apple acknowledged a bug with iPhone's dictation feature in which the speech recognition model briefly displays 'Trump' when someone says the word 'racist.' The issue came to attention on Tuesday after a video demonstrating the substitution went viral on TikTok and other social media.
Apple told Fox News that the issue stems from phonetic overlap between 'Trump' and 'racist,' and that other words with an 'r' consonant are also occasionally affected. A former member of Apple's Siri team suggested the bug 'smells like a serious prank' that could have been carried out intentionally by someone internally.
Governance controls
Apple provided a statement confirming the bug and said 'We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation, and we are rolling out a fix as soon as possible.'
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.