KPOP Demon Hunters has found itself at the center of some AI controversy this week. Tthe actual story itself got clouded in a swirl of social media users arguing. This is the case with a lot of stories concerning artificial intelligence in 2025. But, we are here to detangle this thorny business. We’ll let you know that one of KPOP Demon Hunters’ most popular songs is not written by AI. It seems like this entire discourse cycle has been founded on a game of telephone across the Internet.
This whole story begins on Monday September 15, when one of the songwriters for KPOP Demon Hunters attended an event at the OpenAI Korean office. Kotaku reported that Vince, the producer in question, talked about using ChatGPT to help generate ideas for songs like “Soda Pop” from the Netflix smash-hit.
All of this sounds straightforward, until it was revealed that Korea JoongAng Daily’s original reporting got run through AI tools to translate it. The original Koran article mentions Vince using ChatGPT, but doesn’t actually mention KPOP Demon Hunters or “Soda Pop” for that matter. (Worth pointing out that the social media post that had the Internet yapping has since been deleted!)
KPOP Demon Hunters is not confirmed to have used AI
Since the Internet unearthed all of this, Korea JoongAng Daily has published a correction of the first report. The unease is still there among some of the fandom and that’s a shame. KPOP Demon Hunters’ creative team has been very vocal about championing creative expression in this current era. And, we have to make the point of how every casual fan of this movie champions it as an alternative to endless sequels and reboot efforts.
Not to completely harp on it, but these kinds of moments are why AI is never worth the squeeze in general. This whole situation opened things up to be hijacked by people who are not really after the truth. Instead, the Internet is going to end up yelling at each other as usual, and no one really wins in that scenario. Certainly not the fans, and the people who were happy to see this movie succeed so thoroughly are going to have to explain this whole situation.
It’s hard not to see the mistranslated report as part of a noisy backlash to media that women really enjoyed. Our friend BJ Colangelo over at /Film really laid out how much of a gap KPOP Demon Hunters ended up occupying in the family movie space. Hollywood isn’t really making a ton of women-focused adventure stories for younger viewers these days.
KPOP Demon Hunters is still going to get that sequel. The hype is coming when it’s officially announced. But, hopefully, this entire situation encourages people to read beyond a headline when they scroll social media!
(Photo Credit: Netflix)
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