Google To Fix Gboard’s ‘Sit On My Face’ Autocomplete Suggestion

Autocomplete is useful as it does save you some time from typing, which when you’re in a rush can save you valuable seconds. Now autocomplete has come a long way over the years where it has gotten better where it’s getting smarter at figuring out what you’re trying to say next, but unfortunately this can lead to some questionable results.

Recently it seems that some Gboard (Google’s keyboard app) users are discovering that when they type, “sit on”, they are given the autocomplete option of finishing it with, “my face and”. Given that Android’s prediction algorithm has removed several sexual terms such as “coitus” and “intercourse”, it seems strange that “sit on my face” (NSFW) made the cut.

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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. (This is not a joke)

— son of an asylum seeker, father of an immigrant (@doctorow) July 27, 2018

Google has since confirmed to BuzzFeed News that a fix to remove the phrase is incoming and that it has already started rolling out to users. The spokesperson also added, “Gboard is designed to avoid such predictions in its generic models, but 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.”

Interestingly when BuzzFeed News did some tests, they found that the suggestion appeared when typing on Google’s Pixel devices, but yet did not appear when using a Samsung Galaxy S9. We imagine your mileage may vary but regardless it seems that Google has done away with this for good.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Apps, Gboard, Google