Apple is working to fix a problem with the iPhone’s transcription feature that has some people wondering if it’s really a bug or more like a Freudian slip. According to CNN, some iPhone users say that when using voice-to-text on their phones, saying the word “racist” would cause it to type “Trump” instead. Users say the President Donald Trump’s last name would appear temporarily before it was quickly replaced with “racist.”
A TikTok video posted by @JessWhite2260 shows the transcription error in action. Check it out for yourself here:
Some, in the comments, suggested the glitch is nothing more than basic AI technology, saying that if people use the words “Trump” and “racist” together enough, the program could assume the words are interchangeable.
“Predictive analytics is used for guessing your next word. If it is trained on others this would make sense. Probably means a large set of people use racist and Trump in the same sentence often enough,” wrote one commenter.
But others were quick to assume that the folks at Apple were taking an opportunity to take a not-so-subtle jab at the President.
“Mine did it every time, Apple is so messy,” wrote someone else in the comments.
That suggestion had plenty of other people wishing their phones would catch the bug.
“I wish mine would do that,” wrote someone else.
According to Axios, Apple says the error is a problem with voice recognition and says it is working diligently on finding a solution.
“We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,” said a spokesperson from the company.
But their statement didn’t stop Trump from coming at Apple on his Truth Social platform for voting against ending their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at their annual shareholders meeting this week.
“Apple should get rid of DEI rules, not make adjustments to them,” Trump said in a February 25 post.
According to CNN, Apple’s board insists they are following the law and rather than get rid of initiatives that support diversity, “create a culture of belonging where everyone can do their best work.”