최근 홈로봇에 대한 관심이 인공지능의 발전과 함께 급증하고 있다. 단순히 대화가 가능한 로봇이 아니라 소니의 아이보와 같은 펫로봇 형태를 비롯해 교육, 엔터테인먼트, 안내, 청소와 같은 각기의 세부적인 기능에 특화되어 있는 로봇들이 속속들이 우리 앞에 나타나고 있다. 한편, 클라우드기반의 인공지능 알고리즘과 음성인식을 이용한 AI스피커가 단순히 소리를 전달하는 기능을 뛰어넘어 명령을 알아 듣고 이를 실행하거나 이에 대한 답을 제공하는 기기로 진화하고 있다. 이러한 기능의 변화는 텍스트에서 그래픽유저인터페이스로 진화된 MMI(Man-Machine Interface)의 새로운 세대를 예고하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 홈로봇의 현황과 홈로봇에 적용될 ABI(Audio Base Interface, 음성기반인터페이스)로서 AI스피커에 대해서 고찰하고 있다.

Purpose: This study is to examine the intention of the elderly who live alone in the customized AI speaker for the elderly living alone to improve the quality of life service for the elderly living alone in the smart city environment. Based on the quality of life model of the elderly, this study is applied to the technology acceptance model to investigate the relationship between perceived usefulness and ease of use on the sustained use intention. Research design, data and methodology: Residents in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, selected as candidate local governments for the Smart City Challenge Project of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in June 2019 to measure the perceived technology acceptance of potential users for the AI technology for the elderly living alone as part of the smart city technology. In order to evaluate the intention of using AI speaker, which is the target system of this study, a video of a chatbot using experience of elderly people living alone was produced. Results: First of all, in order for the elderly living alone to have an attitude to use AI-based speakers, there should be a perceived usefulness of the quality of life of the elderly. However, ease of use did not show any significant causal relationship to attitude toward use. In addition, the attitude toward use weakly influenced the intention to use. In other words, elderly people living alone were not likely to have a significant effect on their attitude toward use. However, feeling that AI speakers are easy to use will help to improve the quality of life, which in turn led to the attitude toward using AI speakers, which could lead to indirect effects. Finally, the perceived usefulness of quality of life was found to have a weak effect on direct use intentions. Conclusions: This study conducted a study on the technology acceptance of service environment to improve the quality of life for the specific user group who live alone in the smart seat environment. In this study, we examined the effects of AI speaker on the elderly living alone to improve the quality of life for the elderly living alone.