Persephone is a tour guide in Greece, but perhaps not the type people are used to.
Billed as the world’s first robot tour guide inside a cave, Persephone has been welcoming visitors since mid-July to the Alistrati Cave in northern Greece, 135 kilometers (84 miles) northeast of the city of Thessaloniki.
The multilingual robot covers the first 150 meters (roughly 500 feet) of the part of the cave that is open to the public. In the remaining 750 meters (2,400 feet), a human guide takes over.
The robot was named Persephone because, according to one version of the ancient Greek myth, it was in a nearby plain that Pluto — the god of the underworld who was also known as Hades — abducted Persephone, with the consent of her father Zeus, to take her as his wife.
The robot can give its part of the tour in 33 languages and interact at a basic level with visitors in three languages. It can also answer 33 questions, but only in Greek.
The robot’s begins by saying: “My name is Persephone, I am the daughter of the goddess Demeter and the wife of Pluto, the god of the underworld. I welcome you to my under Earth kingdom, the Alistrati Cave.”
