Apple fixing iPhone glitch that swaps 'racist' with 'Trump' in dictation

The tech giant claimed the glitch occurs because the speech recognition models behind the feature may initially display words with 'phonetic similarities'

Apple is addressing a glitch in its speech-to-text feature on iPhones that momentarily replaces the word "racist" with "Trump" before auto correcting itself.

 

The tech giant confirmed it is working on resolving the issue, which has sparked criticism from Trump supporters and conservative figures, including Infowars host Alex Jones.

 

Numerous iPhone users have shared videos on social media demonstrating the glitch. NBC News, Sky News' US partner, was able to reproduce the issue on multiple iPhones, though not all tests yielded the same result.

 

When using voice dictation and saying "racist," the text briefly displayed "Trump" before being corrected to "racist."  The video was reposted by right-wing American radio host Alex Jones on X, accompanied by the caption: "EXTREME BREAKING NEWS! I just caught apple carrying out a vicious, subliminal attack on president Trump."  The video was reposted by American radio host Alex Jones on X, accompanied by the caption: "EXTREME BREAKING NEWS! I just caught Apple carrying out a vicious, subliminal attack on president Trump."

 

Why did the glitch happen?

 

Apple claimed that the glitch occurs because the speech recognition models behind the feature may initially display words with "phonetic similarities" before further analysis corrects them, according to TweakTown.

 

The company explained that speech recognition models may initially generate words with similar phonetic components before refining the output to reflect the intended term. Apple acknowledged the problem stating that the company is aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and it is rolling out a fix today.

 

According to Apple, the bug has incorrectly suggested "Trump" for various words containing an "r" sound.  

 

"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, as quoted by Sky News.

 

The issue appeared on multiple iPhones, and TweakTown reported that it might still persist in iOS 18. However, the glitch may be location-dependent, as an iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18.3.1 outside the US did not exhibit the same behaviour. A fix may have already been deployed in some regions.  

 

The controversy has led some Trump supporters to accuse Apple of political bias. The incident follows Apple's recent announcement of a $500 billion investment in the US over the next four years.