In the Contactless Era, Artificial Intelligence Robots Guide Cultural Exhibitions

QI batch and service provision scene.

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that starting from the 21st, it will introduce an AI-based cultural exhibition guide robot (QAI) at the National Gugak Center, the Asia Culture Center, and the National Taekwondo Museum to provide cultural information tailored for the non-face-to-face era in collaboration with the Korea Culture Information Service Agency.

At the National Gugak Center, QAI explains and guides visitors through videos so they can directly see and experience traditional Korean music content in sound form, making it easy to understand. At the Asia Culture Center, it offers interactive customized content to help children easily understand the history and culture of Asia. At the National Taekwondo Museum, it explains the history of Taekwondo worldwide to domestic and international visitors and provides multilingual guidance on the Muye Dobo Tongji, a late Joseon dynasty martial arts training manual.

In particular, this version of QAI has enhanced cultural enjoyment support services for socially vulnerable groups. When explaining the history of traditional Korean music, it provides not only multilingual voice guidance but also sign language video interpretation services, and all guidance and cultural explanations are available simultaneously with voice and subtitles. Additionally, it accompanies visitors to specific points they wish to visit and provides guidance along the way.

Since its introduction in 2018, QAI has been deployed in 12 units across 9 locations such as museums, libraries, and cultural exhibition spaces, offering specialized guidance services in the cultural field. By 2024, the plan is to expand the deployment of over 40 QAI units to 29 representative cultural exhibition spaces nationwide. A Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism official stated, “We plan to continuously expand the deployment of QAI, which integrates cultural data with Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, to various cultural exhibition spaces so that the public can enjoy culture more conveniently.”