Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the emerging trends and applications of computing in libraries. It involves programming computers to do things, which if done by humans, would be said to require intelligence. The ultimate promise of artificial intelligence in libraries is to develop computer systems or machines that think, behave, and in fact rival human intelligence, and this clearly has major implications on librarianship. The application of artificial intelligence in the library has become pervasive. They include expert systems for reference services, book reading and shelf-reading robots, virtual reality for immersive learning among others. It will enhance their services delivery. Artificial intelligence will greatly improve library operations and services and will upgrade and heighten the relevance of libraries in an ever-changing digital society.

Pepper appears to be the first of a new breed of personal robots designed to be helpers and companions in the home. In the next five years, several others will become available. One of them, set to ship later this year, is Jibo, a chatty, coffee-machine-size robot created by Cynthia Breazeal, a pioneer of social robotics at MIT. Another robot that will likely hit the market before 2020 is a larger, mobile machine developed by Hoaloha Robotics, a Seattle start-up that targets the health-care market.

Amazon Rekognition is a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) computer vision platform that was launched in 2016. It has been sold to, and used by a number of United States government agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Orlando, Florida police, as well as private entities.

Uses of Robots for Public Service of Library...

In the library, it is assumed that some kind of humanoid robots will be used to support daily life in terms of public service.
Industrial robots will also be used for technical service in the library.
Even in Japan, the introduction of various robots has begun gradually. Some robots are installed permanently, and others are worked for limited periods or for events.
The following is an example of the introduction of robots in Japanese libraries.

The main features of “Pepper” are as follows:

1. About 120 cm in height, about 29 kg in weight, and a battery operating time of about 12 h.
2. Various sensors in the head, chest, hands, and legs.
3. Equipped with a camera and a microphone.
4. Equipped with a tablet-type touch display on the chest.
5. It moves with a wheel called the omni wheel, which can rotate freely. It is not a two-legged robot.

FUNCTIONS :

1. “Pepper” is in charge of the “question answering service”, “support for collection search”, and “acceptance of seat reservation system” in addition to library and local area guidance.
2. Among these responsibilities, regarding the “question answering service”, “Pepper” answers frequently asked questions in the library by using the Q&A automatic response service “TalkQA” collaborated with IBM’s question-answering computer system “Watson”.
3. By gathering about 1,500 words that are frequently used in libraries and creating a conversation database, “Pepper” answers simple questions such as “Where is the bathroom?”.
4. In addition, the “support for collection search” is displayed by scraping the search results of WebOPAC.
Furthermore, the “acceptance of seat reservation system” is a function to reserve a seat for reading materials by reading a user card using “Pepper’s” reading function.