alt Hacker NewsApple is choosing between two outcomes:
- There is a chance, quantified by some metric, where a person is suggested a word that is offensive to them or their culture because a probabilistic model made the wrong decision.
- There is no chance that the above happens.
Apple will choose the latter, time and time again, because they are risk averse and freedom is not particularly high on their values list. We’re talking about the company that doesn’t let you type the Taiwanese flag in China, or the pride flag in Russia. It’s no surprise you’re not allowed to swipe “fuck” in the United States. I used to work at Apple.
At the risk of being controversial, isn't there also the choice not to implement autocomplete and then avoid the above conundrum, especially once you factor in the fact that they can't possibly catch all combinations of words/letters so a grey list isn't actually an effective solution either, other than it provides a we tried defense.
The ultimate problem being some subset of consumers want autocomplete and some subset will retain the right to be offended and some subset will be both of those?
EDIT: And at what point does accidently sending male chauvinist pig to your boss because of autocomplete absolve you of the responsibility of reading the message before you send it?
Is there any reason apple can't give us the choice of.
a) No autocomplete.
b) Autocomplete with greylist.
c) Autocomplete without greylist.