APPLE
A woman in Scotland was shocked after Apple’s voice-to-text service mistakenly added an explicit phrase and an insult to a voicemail transcription.
Louise Littlejohn, 66, got a call from a Land Rover garage about an event.
But when Apple’s AI-powered system turned the voicemail into text, it appeared to ask if she had been “able to have sex” before calling her “a piece of ****"
Littlejohn saw the funny side and quickly realised the mistake wasn’t the garage’s fault.
Experts say Apple’s AI likely struggled due to background noise, the caller reading from a script, or the fact that the message was over the phone, common issues for speech recognition.
Apple declined to comment, but the company has faced other AI-related mishaps recently, including inaccurate news summaries and a speech-to-text error where the word "racist" was transcribed as "Trump."
What went wrong?
AI transcription struggles with poor audio, background noise, and scripted speech.
The phrase "sixth of March" may have been the culprit.
Experts say Scottish accents used to be a challenge, but better audio quality should prevent issues.
While AI speech tools have improved, this incident shows the risks of automated transcription without proper safeguards.
The Scottish accent is undefeated against voice tech.