By Aaron Tilley
Apple said it would fix a "bug" occurring on some iPhones in which its text-to-speech transcription software is sometimes replacing certain words with an "r" consonant -- including "racist" -- with "Trump."
The words "rampant" and "rampage" also at times appear to be replaced with "Trump."
Occasionally, the speech recognition models may begin showing words that have phonetic overlap, an Apple spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to questions about what is causing the error.
"We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation and we are rolling out a fix today," the spokeswoman said.
The issue surfaced online -- including on videos posted on social media -- as users repeated the word "racist" while dictation software is being used in iMessage, Apple's texting software. The Wall Street Journal confirmed the error in multiple tests. It also occurred with other words.
The software correctly renders "racist" or "rampage" several times, but occasionally when it is repeated, will dictate the word "Trump" instead of "racist" before replacing it moments later, the tests show. The word "Reinald" also appeared occasionally instead of "racist."
Write to Aaron Tilley at aaron.tilley@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 25, 2025 15:46 ET (20:46 GMT)
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