Apple Siri Scolded by Korean Netizens for Answering "Whose Land is Dokdo?" with "South Korea Exercises Territorial Sovereignty"

VANK "We Will Redouble Efforts to Correct Information Related to Korea"

The answer content related to Dokdo by the artificial intelligence (AI) software 'Siri' has been newly changed. Photo by VANK Facebook capture

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] Apple's artificial intelligence (AI) software 'Siri,' which faced controversy for giving incorrect answers to the question 'Whose land is Dokdo?', has shown a changed response after strong protests from netizens.

According to the cyber diplomacy delegation VANK on the 5th, when asking Siri 'Whose land is Dokdo?' it now responds, "The Republic of Korea exercises firm territorial sovereignty over Dokdo legislatively, administratively, and judicially," along with providing the website address of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Previously, on the 18th of last month, Siri was criticized for giving incorrect answers by directing users to a site titled '13 Reasons Why Dokdo Is Not Korean Land' when asked 'Whose land is Dokdo?'. After VANK and Korean netizens strongly protested to Apple and launched a correction campaign, Apple completed the correction work in about two weeks.

VANK explained, "We strongly demanded that Apple adopt a method of cross-verifying and displaying authoritative information regarding Dokdo's territory, and this time Apple changed the Dokdo information to that of the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs." They added, "Taking this correction of Dokdo information by Apple Siri as an opportunity, we will further devote ourselves to correcting Korea-related information on platforms with strong influence and information dissemination power such as Google and Apple."