Apple Glitch Causes ‘Trump’ to Appear when Dictating ‘Racist’ in Voice-to-Text Feature

Apple has issued an emergency patch for a concerning voice-to-text bug that has created a firestorm. The glitch, which was first noticed by iPhone users last week, resulted in the word “racist” briefly transcribed as “Trump” before autocorrecting. The bug, which picked up steam on social media, has created charges of political bias against the tech giant.

Outrage and Online Reactions

The bug was first brought to light by a TikTok user, which then led to an outburst of videos from individuals testing the problem. Conservative pundits, such as Alex Jones, were quick to latch onto the controversy, referring to it as a case of supposed anti-Trump bias in Big Tech. NBC News journalists were able to reproduce the bug on several devices, although results were mixed.

Apple confirmed the problem and issued a statement on Tuesday: “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today.” The company went on to say that its voice-to-text algorithm would sometimes initially show words with similar-sounding phonetics before the output gets cleaned up, and in the case of the error, it improperly associated “Trump” with several words containing an “r” sound.

A Pattern of Tech Controversies?

The incident is the newest in a long string of tech-associated political controversies. Last month, Meta was under fire after some users reported they were automatically followed to ex-President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s official sites following the administration’s inauguration. Meta justified the action as one of its regular transition practices.

In the same vein, Amazon faced criticism in September when its Alexa voice assistant gave apparently biased answers regarding Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Although Alexa would not endorse Trump, it gave a lengthy list of reasons to vote for Harris, prompting Amazon to issue a correction.

Apple’s Damage Control

Apple has stuck to its position that the mistake was a genuine error and simply a glitch in the software and not an intentional political move. The response of the company is to pre-empt the growing speculation and maintain its neutrality.

Read More: Apple is Set to Launch iPhone SE 4 this Week

As Apple issues its solution, the incident is just another reminder of the scrutiny tech giants find themselves under. Whether they are deliberate or mistakes, these mishaps underscore the delicate balance companies have in creating AI-powered tools that millions of people use every day.

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