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Apple late on Tuesday promised to quickly fix 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 right-wing 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.
The company said the bug was caused by its speech recognition models displaying words that have some level of ‘phonetic overlap’: in this case, suggesting the word “Trump” when users dictate words with an “r” consonant.
Numerous social media users posted videos replicating the glitch on Tuesday, with far-right commentator Alex Jones accusing the company of “subliminal programming”.
A video showing the bug had amassed hundreds of thousands of likes on TikTok by Tuesday afternoon. Tests by the Financial Times showed the “Trump” suggestion appearing on words other than “racist”.
The glitch came a day after Apple committed to spending $500bn in the US over the next four years, a move widely seen as an overture to the Trump administration. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt flagged up the plans in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday as an indication of the president’s success on business matters.
Apple is particularly exposed to trade tensions with China, and sees an opportunity in Trump’s hostility towards EU tech regulators seeking to levy fines against Big Tech over alleged abuses of market power.
Chief executive Tim Cook has spent years courting Trump and featured prominently along with other Silicon Valley leaders at his inauguration.
The controversy over the voice-to-text feature came on the same day that company shareholders voted to reject a proposal from a conservative non-profit seeking to roll back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Apple has proven a rare holdout among Big Tech companies in refusing to cede to conservative pressure over the policies.
Speaking to shareholders on Tuesday, Cook said while the company “may need to make some changes” to comply with the shifting legal landscape around DEI, Apple was committed to its policies.
Software bugs have proven an issue for Apple recently. Last month the iPhone maker removed an automated news summary feature that showed false or misleading information.
Apple has undergone a major overhaul of its iPhone operating system as it rolls out ‘Apple Intelligence’, a suite of generative artificial intelligence features that it hopes will boost sales of its flagship device, but have received a mixed reception.
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