VANK fears 'Sea of Japan' still widely used worldwide for East Sea
At least 10 major overseas institutions, including the U.S. Department of State and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), use exclusively the name "Sea of Japan" for the body of water between Korea and Japan, historically called the East Sea, a nongovernmental organization in Seoul said Friday. The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), which promotes Korea and its history…
A non-governmental organization in Seoul has revealed that at least ten major overseas institutions, including the U.S. Department of State and NASA, exclusively use the name "Sea of Japan" for the body of water between Korea and Japan. This name, historically referred to as the East Sea, is claimed to be widely used due to the extensive adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) by over 1.2 billion individuals globally.
The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) emphasized the issue after scrutinizing ten foreign government agencies and international databases, which incorporated the erroneous name for the East Sea. VANK contends that the widespread use of AI could lead to the indiscriminate spread of incorrect place names if reputable institutions' mistaken names are integrated into AI training data.
The U.S. state department's travel advisory page for Korea only utilized the name "Sea of Japan" without mentioning its alternative name, "East Sea," while NASA's satellite imagery exemplified this discrepancy.
Written by urgent.news from The Korea Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
