Google Docs Political Correctness and the “N” word

 ?I use to transcribe the lessons of my courses by having Google Docs listen at the recordings and transcribe it right into a text file.

While transcribing a lesson on the Italian terrorism, I made a reference to ? (Toni Negri), the academic who has been accused of providing ideological support to the left wing revolutionary groups.

Well, to my surprise, when I checked the transcript, I noticed that the word “Negri” has been written “N***”.

At a first glance I thought that it was just a software error, but then I understood: “Negri” is the Italian for “Nigger”, a word that in the English language is never neither written nor pronounced, being referred to as “the “n” word”.

As Google failed to understand that “Negri” was a family name, it just fell back on the political correctness and edited in real time the “n word”.

This experience shows that Google voice recognition service is not neutral.

Forewarned, is forearmed…

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