Apple has identified and continues to resolve a speech-recognition bug which briefly converted the word “racist” into “Trump.” The glitch received public attention after users uploaded videos through TikTok and other social media platforms.
An Apple representative confirmed on Tuesday that the company knows about the speech-recognition flaw in Dictation and released a fix during that day. The company clarified the problem originated from the speech-recognition model showing words with similar phonetic patterns before selecting the accurate word.
The Dictation feature shows “Trump” as an incorrect response when users input “ramp,” “rhubarb,” “rhythmic,” and “ruffles” before correcting itself. The software team at Apple confirmed that this problem occurred by accident rather than as part of their design.
Major technology companies have previously encountered allegations about showing political preferences in their systems. Amazon’s Alexa system became the subject of public scrutiny during the 2024 U.S. elections because users found variations in its political response patterns. Users asked the virtual assistant to explain why they should vote for Donald Trump. The system declined to answer due to its neutral position. According to reports Alexa provided reasons that favored Kamala Harris during questioning. Amazon fixed the problem which they linked to a system malfunction. Google received criticism during Election Day because its search results showed different information about voter information for Trump and Harris.
The tech giant Apple gained attention through its $500 billion U.S. investment program which includes Apple TV+ content creation alongside 20,000 new employment positions during the next four years. Tim Cook met with former President Trump after which Apple made its decision.
