Apple Addresses iPhone Dictation Bug Linking 'Racist' to 'Trump'

Apple Says It's Fixing Transcription Glitch That Transcribes 'Racist' as 'Trump'

Apple says a speech-recognition model bug is causing the problem and that it will update iOS to address the issue. Apple says it will issue a software fix for an unusual and ill-timed transcription issue that's been shown in multiple TikTok videos. The issue led to some iPhones displaying the word "Trump" when performing voice-to-text transcription with words that include "racist." An Apple spokesperson said the company was aware of the problem, which it attributed to a speech-recognition model problem and said, "We are rolling out a fix." Apple said "phonetic overlap" with the words that include the consonant R were triggering the bug. In our own informal test, CNET was not able to get iOS version 18.1.1 to display the word "Trump" when using words including "racist," "rhubarb," "rhythmic," "ramp" or "ruffles." The New York Times reported that it was able to replicate the issue several times. A newer version of iOS, 18.3.1 was released earlier in February. It's possible that the suggested word was capitalized as the start of a sentence, not necessarily as a proper name. And instead of referencing the president's surname, the use of "trump" could be a reference to the word that means to beat or gain an advantage over. One former Apple employee speculated to the Times that someone who works on Apple's software may have intentionally programmed in the glitch. Read more: Activision Confirms 'Call of Duty' Features AI-Generated Visuals But Haibing Lu, Associate Professor at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, thinks the embarrassing error could just be a mistake. "Voice-to-text systems depend on probabilistic language models that predict words based on sound patterns and context," Lu said in an email to CNET. "When audio clarity falters or words sound too similar, the system might momentarily pick an odd alternative before trying to auto-correct." This mishap highlights both the current technical limits and the bias challenges inherent in large language models, Lu said. Another expert noted that AI has its limitations, and errors like this one can erode trust in the still-new technology. "AI is only as smart as the data it's trained on," said Scott Stephenson, founder and CEO of Deepgram, an AI platform working in APIs for text-to-speech. Stephenson said the bug is more evidence that "voice recognition should be about understanding, not assuming," noting that "the goal isn't just accuracy, it's trust." Apple has not said exactly when a fix will be issued. News of the bug emerged during the same week that Apple, the world's largest tech company, announced it's investing $500 million in the US, including money for Apple TV Plus content creation and about 20,000 new jobs. The company's CEO Tim Cook met with President Donald Trump last week.

iPhones are replacing 'Trump' with 'racist' during dictation - but Apple is fixing the problem

iPhone owners have noticed a peculiar bug in recent days: "Trump" autocorrects to "racist" when using speech-to-text dictation mode. According to Apple, it's a problem with "phonetic overlap", and a fix is already in the works. After TikTok videos of the slip went viral, Apple provided a statement to The Guardian and others, blaming "phonetic overlap" between the two words: "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," a spokesperson said. While many people were able to recreate the blip, it didn't happen every time - and the text seemed to revert back to "Trump" after a short delay. The latest reports online suggest Apple's fix has already taken effect, so you might not see it happening any more. In its explanation, Apple suggested its speech recognition engines were struggling to distinguish between words with "r" in them. Further testing suggested iOS didn't always get the word "racist" right either, though historically Apple's speech-to-text engines have been very reliable. Apple will be keen to draw a line under this as soon as possible and get the error corrected. It seems particularly unfortunate that a transcription bug like this would link two specific words sure to set off a wave of controversy and politically-charged debate. Peter Bell, professor of speech technology at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC that Apple's explanation was "just not plausible" given what we know about speech-to-text technology. "It probably points to somebody that's got access to the process," said Bell. John Burkey, founder of Wonderrush.ai, gave a similar option to the New York Times: "This smells like a serious prank," he said. "The only question is: did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?" This also feeds into the wider conversation about AI and its reliability, as AI models are used to convert the spoken word into transcribed text - something that you can now do on any modern smartphone. Whether it's meeting notes or show subtitles, we need to be able to rely on the accuracy of this fast-spreading technology.

Apple Is Fixing the iPhone Dictation Bug That Displays 'Trump' for 'Racist'

Apple has promised to fix an iPhone keyboard dictation bug that shows the word "Trump" when a user says the word "racist." When using the voice-to-text feature on Apple apps like Messages, a voice command for "racist" briefly displays "Trump" before delivering the intended word. The glitch gained attention after users posted about it on social media. (We were unable to replicate the bug.) "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," Apple said in its statement to Fox News. Apple has blamed the bug on the phonetic overlap between the two words. However, the same result surfaced for a few other words starting with the letter "r," such as "rampant" and "rampage." "This smells like a serious prank," John Burkey, a former member of Apple's Siri team, tells The New York Times. "The only question is: Did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?" Burkey added. This news comes just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly met President Trump in the Oval Office. After that meeting, Trump said Apple would shift some production to the US to avoid paying tariffs. Trump imposed a 10% tariff on goods from China, effective Feb. 4, and has threatened to impose at least a 25% tariff on foreign-made chips. On Monday, Apple shared details of its four-year, $500 billion United States investment plan. The money will be used to build an AI server manufacturing facility in Houston, produce silicon chips in Arizona, establish a manufacturing academy in Detroit, and create 20,000 new jobs.

Apple to fix iPhone dictation bug that replaces word 'racist' with 'Trump'

Tech company blames 'phonetic overlap' for problem where US president's name appears Apple has promised to fix a bug in its iPhone automatic dictation tool after some users reported it had suggested to them "Trump" when they said the word "racist". The glitch was first highlighted in a viral post on TikTok, when the speech-to-text tool sometimes briefly flashed up the word "Trump" when they said "racist", and was later repeated by others on social media. "We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and we are rolling out a fix," an Apple spokesperson said. The company blamed the bug on its tool displaying words that have "phonetic overlap" before the "intended word" is identified, which in this case included words with the "r" consonant. However, the glitch caused outrage among some conservative commentators in the US, who have long accused big tech firms of political bias against those on the right. The bug also called into question Apple's artificial intelligence capabilities, only a day after the company announced a $500bn (£395bn) investment in the US, widely interpreted as a move designed to appeal to Donald Trump's government. The tech company said on Monday that the investment, running over the next four years, would include a giant factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers and would create about 20,000 research and development jobs across the country. The AI announcement came only days after Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, reportedly met Trump. The company could face 10% tariffs on its devices, many of which are assembled in China before being imported into the US. The maker of the iPhone did manage to secure some waivers on tariffs levied on China during Trump's first term. It is not the first time Apple has announced a multibillion-dollar investment in the US economy during a Trump administration. In 2018, during his first term in the White House, Apple said that new and ongoing investments would contribute $350bn to the US economy over five years. Since Trump's election and his signing of a slew of executive orders overturning diversity, equity and inclusion measures in the federal government, many in the tech sector have followed suit with a rollback of similar schemes - including Google, Amazon and Meta. However, on Tuesday Apple shareholders voted down a proposal urging the company to drop its own DEI programmes.

Apple Fixing 'Trump' Dictation Processing Bug

Multiple iPhone owners today noticed a pronunciation processing issue that causes the word "Trump" to momentarily show up when using dictation to send a message with the word "racist." In some cases, when speaking the word racist through the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the iPhone briefly interprets the spoken word as "Trump" and "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being corrected to the actual word (racist) as Apple's processing interprets what was said. Speaking the word racist with dictation doesn't always show "Trump" first, though it did show up more often than other words in our testing. We also saw "Rhett" and "Rouch" appear before the iPhone corrects to racist. A video depicting the bug has been circulating on TikTok and other social networks. An Apple spokesperson told The New York Times that the issue was due to a phonetic overlap between the two words, and "Trump" and "racist" do indeed have similar sounds. It is not clear if this dictation issue existed prior to today and was just now noticed, or if there was some internal change that caused it. Apple said that it is working on a fix. Former Apple Siri team member John Burkey told The New York Times that there is "probably" code in Apple's systems that is causing the iPhone to write Trump when someone speaks the word racist. "This smells like a serious prank," he said, though he also claimed that it is not clear if it was added into Apple's code or seeded into data that Apple uses for its AI features.

Apple pledges to fix bug that replaces 'racist' with 'Trump'

Apple has said it will fix an iPhone bug that replaced the word "racist" with "Trump" when dictating text messages. People using the company's voice-to-text feature, which allows them to dictate text messages, found that the text box would briefly show the word "Trump" when they said "racist". The word would correct back to "racist" after less than a second, but was clearly visible. Apple promised to fix the bug after it went viral on social media, and the issue appeared to have been resolved on Wednesday morning. "We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and we are rolling out a fix today," the company said. Other words beginning with the letter "r" also appeared to generate the word "Trump", including "rampant" and "rampage". Phonetic overlap Apple blamed the bug on phonetic overlap, a phenomenon in which two words create similar enough audio signals that computer transcription services struggle to tell them apart. However, because the transcription would consistently revert back to "racist" after briefly displaying "Trump" and the fact that the bug was only recently observed led to suggestions that it was deliberately created. The bug could have been developed by adjusting the voice-to-text feature itself, or potentially the underlying data used to train the system. The error is an embarrassment for Apple, as Tim Cook, its chief executive, seeks to court Mr Trump. Apple risks being hit by the US president's trade war and will also be hoping that the White House can push back on European attempts to regulate big tech companies. Mr Cook and Mr Trump met in the White House last week. Meanwhile, Apple investors overwhelmingly voted in favour of the company's diversity policies at Tuesday's annual shareholder meeting, despite Mr Trump putting companies under pressure to drop the schemes. The bug is also the latest setback for Apple's artificial intelligence features, which it is relying on to drive iPhone upgrades. The company recently suspended a tool that summarised notifications from news apps after complaints from the BBC. The feature had incorrectly summarised BBC News push alerts to state that tennis player Rafael Nadal was gay and that darts star Luke Littler had won the World Darts Championship before the final had been played.

Apple's voice dictation is turning the word 'racist' into 'Trump'

Many users of Apple's (AAPL-1.98%) iPhone reported facing a bug on Tuesday when the company's auto-dictation feature typed "Trump" when asked to transcribe the word "racist". The bug caught public attention following a viral TikTok from last week, and was replicated by the New York Times (NYT+0.54%). The video posted on TikTok shows that the glitch did not occur every single time and lasted for a few seconds before reverting to the correct spelling. The cause behind the bug is uncertain as of now, although Apple officials initially blamed "phonetic overlap" between the two words and said they were issuing a fix. The issue drew ire and concern on social media as Apple amps up its artificial intelligence push. On Monday, the company announced a $500 billion commitment to invest in the United States over the next four years, with a bulk of the investments to be made in domestic manufacturing and A.I. Although the official announcement did not mention President Donald Trump, the move was taken as yet another symbol of CEO Tim Cook's attempts to curry favor with the President. Cook was one of numerous tech executives who attended the President's inauguration last month, following a $1 million donation to the event. The latest auto-dictation bug isn't Apple's first mishap involving AI and Trump. During Trump's first presidential term, Apple's voice assistant Siri sparked controversy after displaying the image of a penis in response to the prompt "Who is Donald Trump?" Siri draws information from the public-sourced Wikipedia, which was to blame in this instance after some users edited Trump's page to display the nude photograph.

Apple Is Fixing A Strange 'Trump' Dictation Processing Bug On iPhone, While Former Siri Team Member Says, "This Smells Like A Serious Prank"

Apple has caught itself in an eerie situation where a pronunciation processing issue replaces the word "Trump" with "racist." Apple says that the bug in iOS 18 could be related to phonetics, but it could also be related to the underlying code. iOS has always been prone to bugs that Apple fixes via software updates, and this time around, the issue is of a different nature. If you are not familiar, check out the details below to learn how the issue came to light. Some users have pointed out that when speaking the word "racist" in the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the device briefly interprets it as "Trump" before it is corrected to the actual word. Additionally, the word "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being corrected to the actual word after Apple's dictation feature picks up on what was said. Note that saying the word "racist" does not always bring up "Trump" at first, but it does appear more in some cases than in others. A video has been making rounds on social media that showcases the issue or bug in action, and Apple has taken note of it. An Apple spokesperson told The New York Times that the issue has come to light due to the overlapping phonetics between the two words. Moreover, it is not clear at this stage if it is an issue related to the company's built-in dictation feature on the iPhone. Furthermore, it is also unclear if the issue was previously present or has just come to the surface. In any case, Apple has stated that it is working on a fix, and potentially, the next iOS 18 release would address the underlying bug. According to Apple's former Siri team member John Burkley, the issue potentially persists due to a code in Apple's system that caused the iPhone to replace "Trump" with the word "racist." He also states that the fiasco "smells like a serious prank." He also claims that it is not clear if the code was added to Apple's system or fed into the data that the company used for its AI features in iOS 18. We will let you know when the bug has been fixed, so be sure to stick around for updates.

iPhone dictation feature reportedly swaps 'Racist' for 'Trump'

Apple blamed "phonetic overlap" for the issue and is working on a fix. The New York Times is reporting on a viral problem with Apple's voice-to-text dictation feature, where some users have found that saying the word "Racist" causes the dictation to instead type "Trump," which then corrects itself to the word "Racist" after a moment. A TikTok video showing the phenomenon is a week old, but others have shared similar stories. The New York Times claims it was able to replicate the problem several times; Macworld editors have not been able to. Apple told the NYT that the problem was caused by "phonetic overlap between the two words," and said Apple is working on a fix. That feels somewhat incredulous, as the two words do not sound very phonetically similar and there are certainly other words it could change to that are more similar. It also doesn't explain why it changes back. According to John Burkey, an AI developer who used to be on the Siri team at Apple and is still in contact with old colleagues, the problem began with an update to Apple's AI servers. He says the fact that the word auto-corrects itself makes it seem as though it's not bad training data, it's deliberate code. He thinks it sounds like a very serious prank, something deliberately slipped into either the data or the code. This is a very public embarrassment for a company that has been in Trump's sights as president, and has gone out of its way to ingratiate itself to the Trump administration, with Tim Cook donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration and even sitting up on the dais with other VIPs as he was sworn in.

iPhone transcribes the word 'racist' as 'Trump.' Apple explains why.

Apple is explaining why iPhone's dictation tool temporarily transcribed the word "racist" as "Trump." Credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Apple is on the defense after iPhone users noticed something weird with Apple's AI-powered dictation tool. Over the past 24 hours, videos started to spread across the internet showing iPhone users trying to use Apple's voice-to-text dictation tool to transcribe the word "racist." The iPhone would temporarily transcribe "racist" as "Trump" before quickly overwriting the word with the correct dictation. As to be expected, President Donald Trump's supporters were not happy with Apple over the transcription, with conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones suggesting a conspiracy against Trump. Trump's supporters are not likely to accept Apple's explanation either. Apple says the transcription issue was a phonetic one, a flaw in iPhone's dictation feature where the tool has trouble with similar sounding words with the letter "R." "We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement. However, experts and insiders aren't convinced with Apple's explanation. In BBC's report, speech technology professor Peter Bell said that Apple's version of what happened was "just not plausible." The New York Times spoke to a former Apple employee who had worked on the company's AI voice assistant Siri who said it seemed more like a "serious prank." While the prank explanation seems plausible, this wouldn't be the first time that Apple's AI has gone rogue. Recently, the company had to pull its AI news summaries from the iPhone after the Apple Intelligence-powered feature was providing users with completely false AI-generated headlines. Mashable attempted to recreate the dictation issue, but it appears Apple has already rolled out its fix.

Apple's Dictation App Is Mistaking the Word 'Racist' for 'Trump'

Apple has claimed that the bug is the result of "phonetic overlap." A recently discovered bug in iPhone's dictation app caused it to swap out the word "Trump" for "racist," in a development that is sure to have liberals chortling and conservatives fuming. The issue was first noted by users of TikTok and other social media sites, who found that when they said the word "racist," the app would instead briefly deliver the name of our current president, as Variety first reported. Apple has since confirmed that its app does sometimes confuse one word with another. “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,†an Apple representative told Variety. How does Apple explain this bizarre mixup? The company has claimed that its speech-recognition feature "may temporarily display words with some phonetic overlap before landing on the correct word." Theoretically, that makes sense but I think it's somewhat questionable how much Trump's name and "racist" have in common phonetically. Variety claims that its own tests "indicate that other words that can produce 'trump' include 'ramp,' 'rhubarb,' 'rhythmic' and 'ruffles.'" A broad overall takeaway could just be that Apple's dictation app sucks. Notably, Apple has been gradually integrating AI with its products. One TikTok influencer account noted that she had been able to reproduce the bug at least twice, and provided a video of the transcription jumping from "Trump" to "racist." "How do they do that? That's scary," she says, in the video. Gizmodo reached out to Apple for comment and more information on the bug. This is sure to do little to assuage concerns by conservatives that Big Tech is out to get them. Even thoughâ€"since the electionâ€"the tech industry has overwhelmingly stepped up to kiss Trump's ass, conservatives have long suspected that the tech oligarchy is not on their side. For the most part, tech's perceived slights against the MAGA world have been palpable, if notably small fry. Previous scandals involved an election-related incident last summer when Amazon Alexa was caught encouraging voters to vote for Kamala Harris but couldn't give similar reasons for Trump, and Google's much-maligned AI image generator, which kicked off the whole "Black vikings" debacle.

Apple's AI Dictation Bug That Replaces 'Racist' With 'Trump' Sparks Controversy -- Cupertino Says Its Phonetic Overlap - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Apple Inc. AAPL is working to fix a bug in its AI-powered dictation system after iPhone users reported that saying "racist" caused the word "Trump" to appear briefly before correcting itself. What Happened: The issue was first noticed on Tuesday, with reports spreading rapidly after a viral TikTok video highlighted the problem. An Apple spokeswoman attributed the issue to phonetic overlap between the two words and stated that the company is working on a fix, reported the New York Times. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It's Important: Last month, Apple had to disable its AI news summarization feature after it generated inaccurate headlines. "This smells like a serious prank," John Burkey, a former Apple Siri team member and AI startup founder said about the latest issue, the report noted. Burkey added, "The only question is: Did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?" The timing of the controversy is notable, appearing a day after Apple announced a $500 billion U.S. investment, which includes plans to manufacture AI servers in Houston, Texas. Image via Shutterstock Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: Tech Bull Predicts 26% Upside For Apple Stock, Sees 'Golden Era Of Growth' For Cupertino With AI-Driven iPhone Upgrade Cycle Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. AAPLApple Inc$246.50-0.24%OverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Apple's dictation system transcribes the word 'racist' as 'Trump'

San Francisco | While using Apple's automatic dictation feature to send messages on Tuesday, some iPhone users reported seeing a peculiar bug: the word "racist" temporarily appearing as "Trump", before quickly correcting itself. The message blip, which was replicated several times by The New York Times, provoked controversy after appearing in a viral TikTok post, raising questions about Apple's artificial intelligence capabilities.

Apple's AI Blunder: 'Racist' vs 'Trump' - What's Going On?

Voice Recognition Fail: Apple's iPhone Mistakes 'Racist' for 'Trump' Tech giants and President-elect Donald Trump have historically been at loggerheads with each other. Platform bans, regulatory threats, and accusations of bias mark their contentious relationship. Now, Apple faces unusual complications involving AI interpretation and its political implications. This controversy adds a fresh chapter to debates about Silicon Valley's political leanings as users across the spectrum quirk on iPhones associating two politically charged terms, once again igniting discussions about tech bias and algorithm integrity. A viral TikTok video shared by radio personality Alex Jones on X demonstrates the Apple displaying "Trump" when saying "racist" before correcting itself. It sparks heated social media debate across different platforms about whether this represents deliberate programming or technical bias.