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points by tavavex 10 hours ago | 0 comments

To me, there is a big difference between an Apple algorithm saying "we saw what you typed, would you like to follow that up with <suggestion>?" and "we know what you wanted to type with 90% confidence, but we wouldn't want to say things like that, would we now?". One is predictive, the other acts after the fact.

If Apple doesn't want its autocorrect to suggest statistically likely opinions on divisive topics, then sure, whatever. But when it has a hard blacklist of input it will categorically refuse from the user and editorialize it with nonsensical changes that only serve to avoid the blacklist, that is a very, very bad look.

[–] ryandrake 9 hours ago

Exactly. A lot of posters here are excusing this by saying, well, Apple is guessing and doesn't want to guess wrong. They are ignoring the strength of the user's intent, and the calculated likelihood that they intended to type something in one of these blacklists.

If the user tried to swipe-type "Tibetan independence" and got one or two letters wrong, there's still probably a 90% or even 99% likelihood that their intent was to type "Tibetan independence." Not suggesting "Tibetan independence" is censorship, it's not benign carefulness.

We're not talking about Apple accidentally turning "Buttermilk pancakes" into "Muslim extremist."

[–] schiffern 6 hours ago

  >and "we know what you wanted to type with 90% confidence

Sounds great.

Problem is, because statistics, 90% confidence is wrong 10% of the time. Now you have a big polarizing news story about Apple pushing Trump (or Biden) propaganda onto some maximally sympathetic person who hates that sort of thing.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't, like I said!

Apple chose the sin of omission over the sin of commission. I think that's the right move. Of all the terrible options, Apple found the least terrible IMO.