AI Translation Incident During Artemis II Launch: KBS Apologizes for Profane Subtitles

April 2, 2026

The live broadcast of NASA's Artemis II launch by Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) was marred by AI-generated subtitles that mistranslated aviation terms into profanity. During the livestream, offensive subtitles were reportedly displayed to viewers. KBS later apologized for the error, attributing it to phonetic similarities in AI translation, and announced reinforced profanity filtering measures. Engage with our community—JOIN US—to discuss responsible AI governance and safe AI practices.

Alleged deployer: korean-broadcasting-system-(kbs)
Alleged developer: unknown-generative-ai-developers
Alleged harmed parties: general-public-of-south-korea, korean-broadcasting-system-(kbs)-viewers

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Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1446

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

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