Apple has released a fix for a dictation bug that caused iPhones to briefly display the word 'Trump' when users dictated the word 'racist.' The issue, which gained widespread attention on social media, led to criticism from conservative groups, who accused the company of political bias.

Apple attributed the problem to a flaw in the speech recognition models that power its dictation feature, stating that the system occasionally displayed words with phonetic overlap before correcting them.

'We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,' an Apple spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

However, some experts have questioned Apple's explanation.

Peter Bell, a professor of speech technology at the University of Edinburgh, noted that 'Trump' and 'racist' do not share enough phonetic similarity to cause confusion in an artificial intelligence model.

Bell suggested that the issue may have been the result of deliberate interference rather than an accidental glitch.

A former Apple employee who worked on Siri, Apple's AI assistant, also commented on the matter, describing the incident as 'smelling like a serious prank.'

The bug underscores ongoing challenges with artificial intelligence accuracy, particularly as major tech companies increasingly rely on AI-powered services.

The controversy emerged just as Apple announced a $500 billion investment in the U.S. over the next four years, including the development of a large data center in Texas for its AI-driven Apple Intelligence initiative.