Apple to fix dictation bug linking ‘racist’ to ‘Trump’ amid controversy

CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES: Apple has vowed to address a bug in its iPhone automatic dictation feature after some users reported that it suggested the word ‘Trump’ when they said ‘racist’. The glitch gained attention through a viral TikTok post, where users demonstrated that the speech-to-text tool occasionally displayed ‘Trump’ momentarily upon their utterance of ‘racist’. This situation was subsequently echoed by others on various social media platforms.

An Apple spokesperson acknowledged the issue, stating, “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and we are rolling out a fix.” The company attributed the problem to the tool’s tendency to show words with “phonetic overlap” before accurately recognizing the intended word; in this instance, it included terms that started with the “r” consonant.

The bug sparked significant outrage among certain conservative commentators in the United States, who have consistently alleged that major tech companies display political bias against right-leaning individuals. Additionally, this incident raised questions regarding Apple’s artificial intelligence capabilities, occurring just a day after the company announced a $500 billion (£395 billion) investment in the US, which many interpreted as an effort to curry favour with Donald Trump’s administration.

The investment, planned over the next four years, is set to include the establishment of a large factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers and is expected to create approximately 20,000 research and development jobs nationwide. This announcement followed reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook had met with Trump just days before.

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Apple is facing potential 10 percent tariffs on its devices, many of which are assembled in China before being brought into the United States. During Trump’s first presidency, the company did manage to secure certain waivers on tariffs imposed on China.

This is not the first time Apple has unveiled a multibillion-dollar investment in the US during a Trump administration; in 2018, the company announced that its new and ongoing investments would inject $350 billion into the US economy over five years.

Since Trump’s election and his nullification of numerous diversity, equity, and inclusion measures in the federal government, numerous tech firms have similarly rolled back similar initiatives, including corporations like Google, Amazon, and Meta. However, on Tuesday, Apple shareholders voted against a proposal urging the company to phase out its own DEI programmes.