Google has announced it is rolling out a fix for an auto-complete fail some users are finding offensive.
- YouTube investigating 'disturbing' auto-fill search results
- Google may inadvertently be identifying anonymous rape victims
Some Android users have found that when they type "sit on" while texting, the predictive text tool suggests that they want to type "my face and" next.
The auto-complete recommends words or phrases based on its prediction algorithm.
There are more than 1000 words banned from the Android's algorithm, but the phrase "sit on my face" has not been restricted, until now. The suggested phrase refers to a sexual act.
"We've started rolling out a fix for this prediction behaviour in Gboard so that users will no longer see this suggestion," a Google spokesperson told Buzzfeed.
"Human language is complex, and as with any sort of system that filters sensitive phrases, sometimes inappropriate suggestions make it through into the machine learning models. When we learn of an inappropriate suggestion we work quickly to remove it."
For one Twitter user, this auto-complete suggestion became all-too inappropriate.
"I was SMSing our babysitter with the default Android SMS app; I typed "Hey! Are you free to sit" and autocomplete came up with "on my face." Needless to say, I have never entered that string into my Android device."
Android users can disable GBoard or block specific words they may find offensive.
Newshub.
