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Earlier this week, a number of iOS customers reported that the Apple dictation function incorrectly transcribed the phrase “racist” as “Trump,” earlier than displaying the proper phrase. The substitution was publicly documented by way of movies on TikTok and different platforms, prompting Apple to problem a public assertion and roll out a repair.
iPhone customers publicly doc the error
Reports of the mistaken transcription first surfaced on Tuesday. iPhone customers recorded movies of themselves saying the phrase “racist” aloud whereas the dictation function was enabled. Apple’s AI mannequin would initially write “Trump” earlier than shortly correcting to “racist,” the precise phrase that was stated.
After increasingly iPhone customers stated they have been additionally experiencing the difficulty, publications together with The New York Times have been capable of replicate the error.
Apple blames swap on phonetic overlap
The points appeared to start after an replace to Apple’s servers earlier within the week. Apple attributes the transcription error on a phonetic overlap between phrases that comprise the r consonant, saying that it’s tough for the dictation AI instrument to differentiate between them.
“We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,” Apple instructed The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Apple stated that different phrases that comprise the r consonant might additionally trigger the identical bug. eWeek was not capable of replicate the transcription error on Thursday, which means that the repair has certainly been rolled out to iPhones.
Former Siri group member casts doubt on Apple’s clarification
Not everybody believes Apple’s official assertion, nonetheless. John Burkey, a former member of Apple Siri’s group who remains to be in “regular contact” together with his former colleagues, instructed The New York Times that the bug appeared extra like a deliberate prank than an unintended error, in his opinion.
Burkey stated the truth that the phrase corrected itself signifies {that a} change was made to both the code or the info that powered the speech recognition AI instrument. “This smells like a serious prank,” Burkey stated. “The only question is: Did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?”
The transcription error comes on the heels of Apple’s announcement earlier this week to take a position greater than $500 billion and rent greater than 20,000 folks within the United States. The tech firm additionally introduced plans to construct a brand new manufacturing unit in Texas, seemingly in response to Trump’s tariff on Chinese imports, which embody iPhones and different Apple merchandise.
