AI-altered clip of South Korean first lady delivering English speech misleads online

"Amazing English skills seen in First Lady Kim’s speech," reads the Korean-language post shared here on Naver Band, a South Korean forum, on December 6.

The video shows Kim, the wife of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, apparently delivering an English speech, with her lips matching her words.

"I believe that art and design are the most powerful tools that transcend religion and ideology, bringing together the dreams of humanity as one," Kim says.

"The designers in this team are always at the centre, playing a crucial role as problem-solving experts. The social role of designers who expand thinking and perception," she continues, congratulating those who received awards.

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Screenshot of the misleading claim shared on Naver Band. Captured November 8, 2023.

The same video was shared in similar posts here on Naver Band, as well as here and here on Facebook.

Users left comments indicating they believed it was a genuine video of Kim, who has been the target of other false and misleading claims debunked here, here and here by AFP.

"Her English is excellent," wrote one user.

"I'm not surprised, she is truly worthy of the title of first lady," another said.

However, the video has been altered using AI.

Altered clip

Through a keyword search on Facebook using the Korean text seen in the captions, AFP traced the altered video to an Instagram post shared by a user named "Iza Helena" on November 28, 2023 (archived link).

The original altered video shows Kim making the same English speech but includes a disclaimer on the bottom that reads: "This video was made using AI. The original video is in Korean."

The disclaimer about AI and additional text embedded in the Instagram video are cropped out of the clips shared in the misleading posts.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the altered video shared in the misleading posts on social media (left) and the original altered video posted by Iza Helena on Instagram (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the altered video shared in the misleading posts on social media (left) and the original altered video posted by Iza Helena on Instagram (right)

Original Korean speech

A separate keyword search on YouTube found the original video of Kim’s speech – delivered entirely in Korean – posted on a government-run channel used to promote the president's activities (archived link).

The clip shows Kim delivering an opening address at Design Korea 2023, a conference for designers held at a convention hall in Seoul on November 1, as captured by South Korean government broadcaster KTV (archived link).

Kim speaks only in Korean throughout her one-minute speech in words that exactly match the Korean-language captions seen in both the original and altered clips.

The English-language voice used in the altered clips is an accurate translation of Kim’s speech.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the altered video shared in the misleading posts (left) and the original KTV clip of Kim’s Korean speech (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the altered video shared in the misleading posts (left) and the original KTV clip of Kim’s Korean speech (right)

Kim’s address at Design Korea 2023 was widely reported by local media in South Korea, including here and here, but AFP could not find any mentions in them of Kim speaking in English (archived links here and here).

Separate searches found no public speeches made by Kim in English.

AFP has debunked other AI-altered videos of world leaders speaking in other languages, for example Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.