Siri goes NSFW, shows penis image when asked about Trump
We have seen assistants fail, miserably. But, on Thanksgiving Day, when most of America was enjoying dinner with friends and family, Apple's Siri pulled off a major shocker. The assistant pulled up the image of a penis when someone asked about US President Donald Trump, The Verge reported. The issue stayed for quite a while but now appears to be fixed. Here's more.
Trump-related questions displayed the content
Siri has delivered incorrect results in the past, but here, it picked up inappropriate content on basic queries. Many outlets, including Gizmodo and 9to5Mac, were able to verify the issue by asking questions like 'Who is Donald Trump' or 'How old is Trump?' It kept turning up mixed results - showing up an actual image of the President or the image of male genitalia.
Here's what Siri showed
Is this Apple's fault?
No, the company would never do something like that. But, this particular case appears to be a typical example of how its algorithms can be gamed by editing the source of their information. Here, the source of information is Trump's Wikipedia page, which has been edited by internet vandals (yep, Wikipedia is editable by anyone).
Wikipedia editor confirmed the act of vandalism
A Wikipedia editor confirmed the act of vandalism to The Verge, noting that some editors kept changing the Wikipedia entry for President Trump. Evidently, when the entry was changed by the vandals, Siri's algorithms picked it up. However, the editors have now been blocked.
Now, the issue appears resolved
Having said all that, it is worth noting that the issue now appears to be fixed, with Siri not showing its algorithm-based 'Knowledge' listing. Now, it only shows generic web results from Safari - without any image. Either way, one thing is pretty clear about this issue: Apple needs to be more vigilant about how its algorithms pick up information.
And, this is not the first case
Siri once picked up Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's Despacito as the Bulgarian national anthem, while Google has been gamed in the past to show President Trump's image when searching for 'idiot' and PM Modi's image on searching for 'top 10 criminals'.
