Monday 5 October 2020

Never Trump

Here’s an odd little thing. We all have to write the word “Trump” a lot, right? Love him or hate him, he’s pretty much the daily news. 

Often when I type it on my iPad or Desktop I get it wrong. “Teump” or “Reump” are my most common typos. It occurred to me just recently that it was not being auto corrected. Even though the AI algorithms should correct it, if only because of how often it’s written, millions, maybe billions of times each day. And the AI does take account of how often a word is written. 

So I did a little experiment. 

First “Trump”. I can type “T…R…(nothing suggested) …U… (still nothing) …M … (still nothing)… P.”  So, you have to type the whole word. And if I make a typo, like “Reump” or “Teump“, which I assume must be common errors, there is nothing suggested. Nope, says the AI, I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.

Next “Biden”: I type “B…I… (bingo!)” immediately suggests Biden”. Oh, I see, says the AI, you must mean Joe Biden, here you go! And if I mistype, say “Boden”, the AI is like “surely you mean ‘Biden’.Here you go”. How about “Bisen”. Dear sir, you must be mistaken and mean ‘Biden’. Here you are!”  “Biren”, “Biren”, “Boden”, “Buden”… any combination (apart from an incorrect first letter), and you get “Biden”.

Same for the Vice President and the would-be, Pence and Harris. Nothing autocorrects or auto-finishes to “Pence”, whereas every beginning, correct or not, auto-finishes or autocorrects to “Harris”.

The same seems to be true going back. Auto-finishes and autocorrects for Democrats and zip for Republicans … except for Reagan. Maybe they don’t hate him so much.

But of course, it’s never Teump!

[Okay, I admit, this isn’t item one on the list of current concerns. After all, we have Covid, then Trump with Covid, then Trump drive by with Covid, just for starters. But that’s all covered in the daily  media. And this offering is in the small but growing genre of how Tech is suppressing all things Republican....]