KBS AI Translation Subtitles Reportedly Broadcast Profanity During Artemis II Launch Livestream

During a live broadcast of NASA's Artemis II launch, KBS reportedly used AI-generated real-time translation subtitles that reportedly mistranslated aviation terms including "roger," "roll," and "pitch" into Korean profanity. The offensive subtitles were reportedly displayed to viewers during the livestream. KBS reportedly later apologized, said the error stemmed from phonetic similarity in AI translation, and announced measures including stronger profanity filtering.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 1 Discrimination & Toxicity
• Primary risk subdomain: 1.2 Exposure to toxic content

The AI system generated and exposed viewers to offensive profanity during a live broadcast, violating community standards and broadcasting norms.

Additional risk subdomains

• 7.3 Lack of capability or robustness: The AI system failed to robustly translate specialized technical aviation terms, mistaking them for phonetically similar common words.

Causal factors

• Entity: AI
• Intent: Unintentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incident was caused by an AI translation system making translation errors during a live post-deployment broadcast, which was an unintended outcome of its operation.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 4 Minimal or No Risk

Minimal or No Risk: The AI translation system is used for media subtitling and entertainment, posing low or negligible risks to users and society under the EU AI Act.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: AI 자동 번역
• AI purpose: Translation; Audio Localization
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Unknown generative AI developers
• Alleged deployer: Korean Broadcasting System (KBS)
• Alleged harmed parties: Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) viewers, General public of South Korea

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Negligible. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly exposed: 10000

Potential causes

Management

• Inadequate Risk Assessment: Management failed to assess risks of using live automated AI translation.
• Poor Partner Coordination: Insufficient coordination with translation vendors on safety filters.

Technology

• Phonetic Translation Error: AI translated aerospace terms to profanity due to phonetic similarity.
• Lack of AI Profanity Filter: The translation system lacked robust real-time profanity filtering.

Data Inputs

• Acoustic Signal Ambiguity: Ambiguous pronunciation of specialized terms led to translation errors.
• Lack of Domain-Specific Data: The AI was not sufficiently trained on specialized aerospace terminology.

Human Factors

• Overreliance on AI Automation: Broadcaster relied fully on automated AI translation without manual oversight.

Process and Methods

• No Real-Time Review Process: No delay or review mechanism was in place to catch live translation errors.
• Inadequate Safeguard Testing: The live translation workflow lacked pre-broadcast safety verification.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report clearly details the incident, the specific mistranslations, the public reaction, and the broadcaster's response. There is no conflicting information or significant ambiguity regarding the AI's role.

An AI translation system used by South Korean broadcaster KBS mistakenly translated technical aviation terms into Korean profanity during a live broadcast of the Artemis II launch. The incident caused minor public embarrassment and viewer backlash but carried no national security implications.

• Overall national security impact: Negligible
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: South Korea
• Alleged perpetrator: Unknown

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The incident represents a minor technical error with no ongoing national security threat or immediate crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-supervised. The AI translation system generated subtitles autonomously in real-time, but operated within a broader human-controlled broadcasting environment.
• Novelty: Established threat. AI translation errors and phonetic mistranslations are well-documented, established technical issues.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident involved a translation error during a live broadcast and posed no physical threat to critical infrastructure or human safety.
• Information security: Negligible. No evidence of coordinated disinformation, intelligence compromise, or adversarial AI manipulation. The error was entirely unintentional.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. Core government operations and sovereign decision-making processes were unaffected by the broadcasting error.
• Economic security: Negligible. No strategic technology theft, financial system impact, or threat to economic stability occurred.
• Societal stability: Negligible. While the broadcast of profanity caused public embarrassment and viewer backlash, it did not threaten social cohesion or civil rights.