OpenAI officially has a Korean office. Normally, that wouldn’t be news we would cover here at Kotaku, but KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix’s animated musical phenomenon, was apparently brought up during the generative AI organization’s launch event for its new Korean subsidiary on Monday, September 15. Vince, a prolific K-pop producer who wrote songs performed by the film’s demonic boy band group called the Saja Boys, made an appearance at the Seoul event. That’s annoying in and of itself, but he also apparently dropped the bomb that he used AI to help write the group’s infectious song “Soda Pop.”
OpenAI technical staff member Sherwin Wu said in a since-deleted tweet that Vince said he used ChatGPT to write “Soda Pop,” and that the generative chatbot “gave him ideas to make it sound ‘more bubbly.’” This occurred during an on-stage discussion with Oliver Jay, OpenAI’s Chief Business Officer. Korea Joongang Daily reports that Vince said this was an example of how AI is “already used in K-pop production,” but this is notably not a direct quote, as the original article was written in Korean and “translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools.” The publication’s original Korean article includes mentions of Vince using ChatGPT, but doesn’t call out KPop Demon Hunters or “Soda Pop” by name. We’ve reached out to the outlet for clarification.
At the moment, there doesn’t seem to be footage of Vince’s talk on the internet, but we’ve reached out to Netflix and OpenAI for comment on the situation. Based on these accounts, it sounds like Vince used ChatGPT to help ideate the song that would eventually become “Soda Pop,” but AI was not used to generate the song that appears in the film. Rei Ami, one of the vocalists behind the voices of the fictional girl group Huntr/x, has been very vocal about the real people behind every performance in the film ever since accusations of AI use have sprouted up in the wake of the film’s colossal popularity.
Even if the final song is all produced and sung by real people, fans are feeling burned knowing AI may have played any part in the creation of the film, given its worldwide success and how it’s become a poster child for people advocating for new ideas in the animation industry in the face of never-ending sequel slop. We’ll update this story if we hear back from Netflix or if Vince makes an official statement.