Korea Heritage Agency to adopt AI chatbot

The Korea Heritage Agency will start integrating artificial intelligence to streamline its internal work process through a chatbot service, it said Sunday.

The change comes after the agency, which helps the Korea Heritage Service with heritage management, became the recipient of government funding of up to 200 million won ($145,000) this year. The agency said the fund will be used to streamline the way information is accessed.

“Chatbots will boost our productivity and they can be utilized in hiring and promoting personnel,” an agency official said, noting discussions are underway over implementing bigger overhauls.

The official added that the government-led support would eventually lead to the launch of cloud computing services that the private sector has been quicker to adopt.

The latest digitization efforts are part of a broader push by the Korea Heritage Service to enable the public to take advantage of national heritage.

On May 17, the KHS renamed itself from the Cultural Heritage Administration to openly solidify its commitment to “providing services.” It also aligned itself with the UNESCO classification of heritage.

Another KHA official said it will back this year’s greater outreach to the marginalized. In March, the agency held a traditional Korean wedding for two North Korean defectors who were married in 2019 but previously had no official ceremony.

The KHA said it plans to offer such wedding ceremonies for people from multicultural backgrounds, those with disabilities, low-income households and veterans.

Outreach to the underprivileged extends to inviting more of them to festivals taking place at palaces from the Joseon era (1392-1910) in Seoul. The number of such guests invited to this year’s palace festivals has come to roughly 2,800, about 2 1/2 times last year’s figure.

During one of the festivals at the main palace Gyeongbokgung in May, visually impaired people were introduced to the palace kitchen, where they were given the opportunity to smell and taste desserts and refreshments.