Apple said it is working to fix a bug causing its voice-to-text feature to display the word “Trump” when a user speaks the word “racist.”
The Details: Reports of the issue grew following a viral TikTok from a user who pointed out the glitch. Apple reportedly cited a problem with the speech recognition model, which may initially show words with “phonetic overlap” before landing on the correct word, and said “r” consonants appear prone to this error.
For Context: Voice-to-text wouldn’t show “racist” every time someone said Trump. Fox News (Right) noted it also suggested words like “Reinhold” and “you” when a speaker said “racist,” but that “Most of the time, the feature accurately wrote ‘racist.’”
Key Quotes: Many outlets across the spectrum noted that Apple said in a statement, “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation, and we are rolling out a fix.” AllSides wasn’t able to find the full statement or an outlet that linked to it. A former Apple employee who worked on its artificial intelligence told The New York Times (Lean Left), “This smells like a serious prank.”
How The Media Covered It: Financial Times (Center) opened its article writing that the bug “was quickly seized upon by rightwing commentators” and comes as Apple aims to “shore up its relationship” with Trump. Fox News backloaded the second two-thirds of its article with context on the “pro-Harris” bias controversy with Amazon's Alexa from 2024. The Guardian (Left) claimed, “The bug also called into question Apple’s artificial intelligence capabilities, only a day after the company announced a $500bn investment in the U.S.”
Apple to fix iPhone dictation bug that replaces word ‘racist’ with ‘Trump’
Apple has promised to fix a bug in its iPhone automatic dictation tool after some users reported it had suggested to them “Trump” when they said the word “racist”.
The glitch was first highlighted in a viral post on TikTok, when the speech-to-text tool sometimes briefly flashed up the word “Trump” when they said “racist”, and was later repeated by others on social media.
“We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and we are rolling out a fix,” an Apple spokesperson said.
Apple promises to fix dictation bug that replaces ‘racist’ with ‘Trump’
Apple has promised to fix quickly a bug in its voice-to-text function that briefly swapped words with an “r” consonant — including “racist” — for “Trump”.
The phenomenon, which went viral in a video on TikTok and was quickly seized upon by rightwing commentators, comes as the $3.7tn company seeks to shore up its relationship with Donald Trump’s administration.
“We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,” Apple said on Tuesday.
Apple iPhone's voice-to-text feature periodically shows 'Trump' when user says 'racist'
Apple’s iPhone voice-to-text feature is sparking controversy after a viral TikTok video showed a user speaking the word "racist," which at first showed up as "Trump" before switching back to "racist."
Fox News Digital was able to replicate the issue multiple times. The voice-to-text dictation feature was observed briefly flashing "Trump" when a user said "racist" before it quickly changed back to "racist" – just like in the viral TikTok video.