Was Siri programmed to be a Russian homophobe? A Russian-language speaker living in London recorded some rude responses to questions about being gay from Apple’s digital assistant.

ā€œIs gay marriage normal?ā€ Alex asks.

ā€œI believe this emotion should be considered negative,ā€ Siri responds.

BBC Russia tested Siri and received similar responses to Alex, publishing a story that backed up the YouTube accusations. Apple told the BBC that the responses ā€œwere the results of a bug that has since been fixed.ā€

Siri’s Russian-language answers about gay people started changing after the BBC released its article, suggesting that Apple tweaked the responses to be less homophobic in the past week. So weird how a ā€œbugā€ that makes voice assistants homophobic only affected Siri in the language of a nation famously averse to homosexuality!

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[Buzzfeed | BBC]

Lead image: screenshot from YouTube