In an unusual technical mishap, Apple's iOS dictation feature made headlines this week after users discovered it was incorrectly transcribing the word "racist" as "Trump" before self-correcting. The error was extensively documented by iPhone users across social media platforms, particularly on TikTok.
Multiple users demonstrated the glitch by recording themselves saying "racist" while using the dictation feature, which initially displayed "Trump" before changing to the correct word. The New York Times independently verified the transcription error through their own testing.
Apple quickly addressed the situation, attributing the mistake to phonetic similarities between words containing the 'r' consonant. The company released a statement acknowledging the issue and promised an immediate fix: "We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today."
However, not everyone accepts Apple's technical explanation. John Burkey, who previously worked on Apple's Siri team, suggested the error appeared more intentional than accidental. Speaking to The New York Times, Burkey noted that the self-correcting nature of the glitch indicated possible manipulation of the AI tool's underlying code or data.
The incident occurred shortly after Apple's announcement of major U.S. investments, including plans for a new Texas factory and the creation of 20,000 jobs. By Thursday, reports indicated the transcription error had been resolved, suggesting Apple's fix had been successfully implemented across iOS devices.