Apple To Fix iPhone Dictation Bug Replacing ‘Racist’ With ‘Trump’

Users on social media noticed a bug in Apple’s automatic dictation feature that temporarily replaced the word “racist” with “Trump.” The tech giant said they were working on a fix.

According to the New York Times, the glitch has sparked debate and the story has gone viral on social media platforms like TikTok where users shared videos with the message blip. Reporters confirmed and replicated the anomaly several times.

John Burkey, the founder of Wonderrush.ai and former member of Apple’s Siri team told The New York Times that the issue appeared after an update to Apple’s servers.

“This smells like a serious prank,” said Burkey. “The only question is: Did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?”

According to Axios, Apple explained that the problem is a phonetic overlap during the speech recognition process, and they were working on 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 an Apple spokesperson via email.

Some users reported that other words containing the “r” consonant presented the same glitch.

The technical issue was spotted right after Apple announced its $500 billion investment plan in the United States as a sign of support for Trump’s administration.

If the bug is indeed a prank, it wouldn’t be the only tech prank of the week. On Monday an AI-generated video depicting President Donald Trump sucking Elon Musk’s toes was played in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington.

Apple’s AI has previously experienced issues including inaccurate news summaries, generating fake information, and hallucinations. Citizens and news publications shared their concerns and the BBC filed an official complaint to the tech company. A few weeks ago, the tech giant announced an update to the feature to avoid errors.