iPhone Dictation Replaces 'Racist' with 'Trump'
Apple has fixed a supposed bug that caused iPhones to mix up the words "Trump" and "racist". But a speech recognition expert says Apple's explanation was implausible.
The issue was with the Dictation tool in iPhones that lets users speak and have their words transcribed ready to use as text, for example to send as a message. Numerous videos posted online by users showed them saying the word "racist" but their phone showing the word "Trump" before correcting the error shortly afterwards. Although Apple quickly fixed the issue after the videos went viral, it does appear the videos are genuine.
Apple's confirmed the issue, describing it as "an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation." The New York Times said the company referred to "phonetic overlap" between the two words, with other media sources saying Apple had pointed to the "r" sound as the specific issue. (Source: nytimes.com)
Explanation Implausible
However, Professor Peter Bell, a speech technology expert, told the BBC that was almost impossible to believe. He noted that the words were not close enough that a trained language model would mix them up. (Source: bbc.co.uk)
Bell added that although such an error could be possible with some languages, Apple's English language model would be far too accurate for such an error.
Human Interference Likely
Another sign something was amiss is the way the software made the error and then corrected itself. That strongly suggests it immediately spotted something was wrong when looking at the apparent transcription and seeing the word in the context of the sentence. Normally a speech model would consider context alongside the sound of the word, before deciding what word to use in the transcription.
It seems almost certain Apple has instead been the victim of what could be described as anything from a prank to a political protest to malicious interference. The most likely explanation is that somebody tampered with either the code running the Dictation tool or the language database it used, meaning the tool would correctly identify the word as "racist" but then deliver it as "Trump" in the results.
What's Your Opinion?
Do you find automated transcription works well these days? Are you surprised Apple gave such an unconvincing explanation? Is it concerning that somebody was apparently able to make such a software change without being caught earlier?
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Comments
iPhone said what the mainstream media is afraid to say
The iPhone is showing more intelligence that isn't artificial than the mainstream media which has been to afraid to actually speak the truth about the American Authoritarian in Chief.
Think about it. Who, but a racist (and in this case, a serious bigoted white supremacist) would:
(1) Eviscerate enforcement of the Fair Housing Act by firing 76% of enforcement staff at the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and closing current housing discrimination cases
(2) Halt enforcement of civil rights, fair housing, and employment discrimination laws
(3) Flip reality on its head by asserting that the fair housing laws are the cause of the affordable housing crisis when, factually speaking, it is local exclusionary zoning practices that prevent the construction of housing affordable to households of lesser incomes (including middle income) [an issue I've researched and written about in more than a dozen monographs and studies]
(4) Require all federal departments to terminate their civil rights divisions
(5) Arbitrarily and illegally terminate existing funding to half the fair housing organizations in the country — these are the first line of defense against housing discrimination
(6) Allow cities to self-certify in one sentence that they are complying with the Civil Rights Act of 1968 instead of conducting the long-required analysis of impediments to fair housing choice that identifies local causes of housing segregation and the exclusion of affordable housing
(7) Falsely equite Diversity-Equity-Inclusion initiatives with anti-discrimination laws in order to get around the anti-discrimination laws
(8) Get the first Black head of the Virginia Military Academy fired for ... being Black
(9) Fire top rank Black and women military leaders for the crime of ... being Black or female
(10) Seek to privatize the US Postal Service which has played a major role in growing the Black middle class by not engaging in the extensive racial discrimination that remains routine in our private sector businesses — privatization will restore discrimination in hiring our postal workers
Seriously, what could possibly be right about allowing somebody to refuse to sell or rent to somebody due to their race, color, national origin, religion, gender, and other immutable characteristics?
This administration is intent on restoring Jim Crow and it sounds like the iPhone (thanks to some human intelligence) is among the few willing to speak the truth to power.
Dan_2160 Agreed!
I'm embarrassed to say Trump is our president. And after the Zelensky incident, I must include Vance ,L.Graham and M. Johnson. Canada has a highly intelligent, physically fit and rational leader. We have a dolt!!
SO it is OK to mess with code for the "right" reasons
Sunds like a leftist liberal view to me to say that it is OK and proper to insert code into software that has no benefit to the correct and tidy execution of that software. This leaves a whole lot of what ifs' to any software that is written. I was under the impression that code was meant to do a specific job with the most efficient code necessary.
I suupose anything goes now.
Code should be neither liberal nor conservative (aka unbiased) in it's execution.
Can't wait for common sense
As a Canadian and having lived through the 80's, I have enjoyed common sense and free speech for decades. However, that is not the case these days. Until now, I have viewed myself as a Liberal in the past, but the party has leaned so far left that it's now embracing Marxism and Communist tendencies. In short, I simply can't stand Justin Trudeau and his woke policies.
While I don't agree with -every- policy Trump dictates (especially on Ukraine and the trade war with Canada), overall I do agree with his common sense approach. I will throw a party if Pierre Poilievre gets in power in Canada and quite frankly I hope he does the same as Trump. I can't stand Trudeau and his radical liberal policies - or anyone else connected to the World Economic Forum for that matter (which also includes the current Liberals running for Prime Minister).
Now remember folks - free speech is welcome here and helps to foster dialogue and great ideas. If you want to rant and rave why you hate a political party (or political figure), go for it but don't personally attack each other in the comments.
Let's keep it classy!
Common Sense
Dennis, I am a proud USA citizen and have been for 80 years. I agree that this particular forum really doesn't lend itself to political debate. This item was about the question of how IPhone's dictation app could possible confuse "racist" and "Trump". There is no linguist method to confuse the two sounds, so it is obviously a software installation problem. This same problem could use "Charles" or "Trudeau" or "Pelosi" or "Fass" for that matter. It, and the above comment, has no rightful place in a general purpose app or on a computer/software/Microsoft site.