Wed, 26 Feb 2025

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 Apple AI tool transcribed the word 'racist' as 'Trump'

Experts have questioned the company's explanation that it is due to the two words being similar.
Apple has acknowledged an issue with its Dictation service, where users have reported that speaking the word "racist" into their iPhones types out "Trump". The tech giant claims the problem is due to difficulties distinguishing between words containing the letter "r", but a speech recognition expert disputes this explanation. According to Professor Peter Bell of the University of Edinburgh, someone may have tampered with the underlying software used by the Dictation tool, rather than it being a genuine error in its training data. Apple's attempted fix has already begun rolling out, and some users report that speaking "racist" into their iPhones now correctly transcribes as such. However, Professor Bell remains skeptical of Apple's explanation, suggesting that an AI system should be able to distinguish between the two words due to their distinct pronunciation and context-dependent meanings.
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