"Bionic Robot" trapped in the Cyber World

There will be such a setting in many movies of Sai Bo Punk:

The story took place in the anti -Utopia earth decades. The entire world was full of black and dark tone. The boundaries of people and machines became more and more blurred. Philosophy of life, emotion, human nature and other propositions.

Entrepreneurs in the technology industry seem to be far exceeding the ordinary people. Many founders like to draw inspiration from Cyberpunk movies, integrate some science fiction elements into the company's direction, and use this to tell the prospects and trends that make the capital market understand and firmly believe.

There are not a few industries that are affected by Saobo Poch, but those who have the most direct impact or even upgrade to industry beliefs are undoubtedly the "bionic robot" tracks hotly discussed in public opinion.

01 Seber style product positioning

For example, in the screen -level speech a few days ago, in addition to the "perception of the trough of life", Lei Jun also brought a lot of "private goods". The most discussed by the outside world was Cyberone, a humanoid bionic robot.

From the "Rebus", Lei Jun, who is "Reesk", did not cover up his love for Sai Bo Poch. He used the prefix of "Cyber" in the product name, full of Cyber ​​taste. At the same time a year ago, Xiaomi also launched the first generation of bionic four -foot robot Cyberdog, which is also named "Cyber".

The reason why the outside world uses "Lesk" as the new title of Lei Jun has a direct relationship with Elon Musk. The latter is also a fan of Pacific Punk. He once named Tesla's electric pickup Cyber ​​Truck, and Musk also liked to find inspiration from the Pai Bo punk movie. Tesla Bot was renamed Optimus by Musk, and the new name comes from the protagonist "Optimus Prime" in "Transformers".

Not only is the "Cymbority" naming, the product positioning of bionic robots also has a strong Bobo style. For example, Xiaomi's introduction to Cyberone: "Cyberone can be happy with you, and can also give you a hug when you lose."

In order to meet the needs of "companionship", Xiaomi is equipped with the self -developed MIAI environmental language recognition engine and voice emotional identification engine for Cyberone, which can realize 85 environmental voice recognition and 45 human emotional identification. Just like the scenes in many Bobo Punk movies, robots are expected to become a "friendly friend" for people.

Some regrets are that Cyberone's cost is as high as 600,000 to 700,000 yuan, and at this stage is only a "verification machine", and the production time is far away. Tesla's "Optimus Prime" still exists on the PPT. Even the initial live demonstrations were played by real people, so that Lei Jun was grabbed by Lei Jun on the "prototype".

A good news is that "bionic robots" may still be a concept, but "bionic machine dogs" are already available products that can be bought. Xiaomi's Cyberdog, Tencent's Jamoca, GO1 of Yushu Technology ... Many of the products can already complete the actions such as jumping, running, rolling and even plum piles, and the price has been low to 10,000 yuan. The market generally starts to "grow grass" to young people on short video platforms.

This is also the place where the "bionic robot" is criticized.

Many video bloggers have shot a lot of "machine dogs" content, which can be said to have earned enough attention, and also revealed to the outside world: even some machine dogs that dance danced on an important stage, but the application in reality is It is unsatisfactory that when the machine dogs in many videos fall down the stairs, they can only roll off the ground. What can be satisfied is just a fresh sense pursued by a few geeks.

As for whether the bionic robot of Bacheli has a market? This question does not seem difficult to answer. The encounter of Boston's motivation is the best example.

02 Boston Dynamics, which is "disliked"

Whether it is an bionic robot or a four -legged robot dog, the Boston power born in 1992 is the "originator" type, and it can even be said that there is no technical right.

For a long time, Boston's motivation is the actual industry top flow. Even if marketing is mainly to share the video of robots on YouTube, almost every new dynamics will cause global discussions.

It is such a "Internet celebrity company", but three times in seven years.

In 2013, Google led Boston's power in Boston's power at a price of $ 3 billion, led by Android's co -founder Andy Rubin, and classified it into the Google X project of "Focusing on Future Research". With Google's endorsement, Boston's initial ATLAS quickly emerged, and then a series of bionic robots such as Wildcat and Spot continued to refresh people's understanding of "robots".

However, in 2017, Google announced that Boston's power was transferred to Japan SoftBank. Although the most discussing the reason is that Boston's motivation serves the military, Jonathan Rosen Boger, who has been responsible for the Google "Copy" project, did not intend to say in November 2015: "As a start -ups of our scale, a start -ups of our scale Company, we cannot spend more than 30%of resources on things that take 10 years. "

It can be proved that SoftBank has accelerated the commercialization process after taking over Boston's power, including SPOT Mini, which has a bright prospect for developing commercialization, launching the lease services of Spot robots, and the efforts of warehousing and logistics. As a result, it is not as optimistic as expected. The annual sales of Spot robots are only hundreds of units and high prices that restrict the development of the consumer -level market, and eventually become a burden that SoftBank wants to get rid of it. According to the founder of Boston Dynamics Mark Leipper: "I have not experienced 25 years of concentrated research, which is not enough to be commercial." But the capital market obviously has no such patience. In December 2020, the Hyundai Motor Group bid for US $ 800 million in the shares of Boston's power, and the valuation was two -thirds of the valuation in seven years.

At that time, many people attributed the reason to SoftBank's own business crisis, and the sales of Boston Power were compared with the sale of SoftBank and ARM and other assets. However, less than half a year later, SoftBank spent $ 2.8 billion to acquire 40%of Autostore's equity. AutoStore is a company that mainly develops warehousing robots. The business center of gravity is the logistics storage industry that Boston's power wants to break through.

In the thirtieth year of Boston's power, the robot is still known as the "pearl at the top of the crown of the manufacturing industry". The bionic robot is still the pyramid tip of the robot. Dynamics has become the abandonment of Google and SoftBank?

It is not only the power of Boston that needs to think about this problem. A robotic company that has taken the initiative to transform into industrial transformation is still out of favor. Those companies that focus on "companionship" seem to reflect more.

03 Imagination is lost to commercialization

Almost all ancient civilizations have the legend of "God Create". It is precisely the beliefs demented from human civilization that makes us rush to "bionic robots".

As early as the end of the last century, electronic pets were popular all over the world. Although the products at that time were only equipped with the most basic machine learning technology, and they had gained the love of many children as usual. The Phoebe Elf, which was listed in 1998, sold more than 40 million in the world; AIBO, an electronic machine pet released by Sony in 1999, was regarded by many Japanese users as family members who got along and night.

If the humanoid bionic robot can simulate the "perception -cognition -decision -execution" process of human beings under the empowerment of artificial intelligence technology in different scenarios, it may be the spiritual sustenance of a generation like electronic pets, and it corresponds to not small. Great imagination.

However, the real world is different from Cyberpunk. People do not lack emotional sustenance. Family, friends, pets, and even virtual human beings can play such roles. It is urgent to lack productivity.

Even though Tesla's Optimus is very close to people, in the official statement: "Optimus's current mission is to reduce the production cost of Tesla automotive products, and at the same time, it can be in positions in danger, boredom, duplicate or occupational hazards. Instead of manpower, the center of gravity is still in filling the labor gap. "However, the main purpose of the machine replacement of the person is efficiency, blindly let the machine imitate humanoid work, and more or less biased.

Following this logic, two -footed or four -foot robots are not just needed at this stage. In the application of civilian fields, the "wheel" can solve the problem of 99%. In military scenarios, the track can also solve the problem of 90%. It is actually a long -tail market for both feet or four -foot robots.

You can refer to Yan Yan, an engineer of the China Bing Intelligent Innovation Research Institute: "Foot robots are more suitable for walking in the room or in the industrial scene. It is suitable for factory inspections, and it is also suitable for outdoor soil slopes or gravel roads. Configure the camera, which can do some dangerous goods detection or explosion functions, and make different settings according to different tasks. For example, railway maintenance, you can use robots to inspect the orbit back and forth. "

Moreover, in the application of these subdivided scenarios, "foot type" is not the only solution. Compared with the complex mechanical structure of foot -type robots, the drone of "flying" is undoubtedly more mature and lower -cost option. Under the product research and development concept of "hardware reduction, software to add", bionic robots with too complex hardware structure are by no means mainstream, and it can even be said to be a advanced product.

Davidment application scenarios, small market space, huge R & D investment, high maintenance costs, the imagination space of bionic robots is very large, but the business prospects are not sexy.

There are reasons to believe that Xiaomi, Tesla, and other players of manufacturers have the current status of the application of bionic robots. The start -up companies represented by Yushu Technology have begun to work hard to assist staff in special scenarios such as complex terrain and bad environment. And those giants who have a single function and marketing hold high, are other thoughts.

04 combination of cars and robots

Among the players who are involved in the "bionic robot", automobile manufacturers or brands that clearly want to launch automobile products account for a considerable proportion.

Not only the "New Eastern" modern car of Boston Power, Xiaopeng Pengxing, an ecological company of Xiaopeng Automobile, launched a robot named "Little White Dragon". Baidu released a new car with a "car robot" in early June ... Borrowing the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, He Xiaopeng said: "In the future, smart cars will be a manufacturer of smart robots. Smart cars and smart robots will be the same industry in the future, and it can produce a 1+1> 2 effect." The popular explanation is that the boundaries of bionic robots and smart cars are relatively vague, and they can empower each other in the fields of autonomous driving, power systems, and intelligent interaction. Especially in terms of autonomous driving, once the bionic robot is mass -produced, it will provide a large amount of scenario data for autonomous driving, and the scene recognition is the rigid need for autonomous driving above L4. Auto companies have unparalleled innate advantages.

Perhaps there is another possibility.

After Xiaopeng's "Little White Dragon" was launched, although the products at this stage mainly provide children with a fun riding experience, it can be regarded as a large toy of children, but it frequently revealed to the outside world. The ambition of the scene in the scene, the intelligent bionic robot that lives with humans ". In the atmosphere of the overall rising concept of robotics, it is undoubtedly conducive to Xiaopeng's financing and market value.

The interaction between Lei Jun and Cyberone does not seem to have allowed Xiaomi's stock price to rise sharply. However, it is an indisputable fact that some robotic concept stocks and Xiaomi concept stocks have risen. The concepts of robotics such as Zhongjing Electronics, Wenyi Technology, and Saixiang Technology have daily limit. The concepts of Xiaomi, such as precision and Yuhuan CNC, are also happy.

Following the end of the Internet giant, bionic robots are becoming a new topic point. Not only can it be favored by the capital market for product research and development, but also the opportunity to increase the exposure of the brand and create "hot search" in a low -cost way to create "hot search" With good news, continue to stimulate the stock price.

So that after lectures on the anniversary of Lei Jun, CICC made a public statement: mobile phone factories and automotive factories have settled in the humanoid track, confirming that the humanoid track has sufficient commercial value and development potential, but the prototypes released by major factories are currently released by major factories. The machine is still in the technical iterative stage and lacks mature application scenarios, and the industry development stage is relatively early. At the same time, the market emotional fermentation for a period of time, some enterprises that lack fundamental support are facing the risk of callbacks. It is recommended that everyone pay attention to the growth of high -quality companies from a fundamental perspective.

As McKinsey estimates in the relevant report, 15%-30%of positions in the world will change due to the popularity of robots in 2030. Such a vision is undoubtedly exciting, and it is also a future that companies such as Boston Power are firmly convinced. However, most of the bionic robots in the market can only do some simple actions, and the distance from imagination. gap.

Even so, the topic of the bionic robot will continue in a long period of time, because there are always people who can see "opportunities" from the new air outlet.

05 Write at the end

The biggest "rival" in the current stage of bionic robots may be the Yuan universe with the color of Saobunk.

Compared to the bionic robots that cost tens of thousands of yuan, people only need to wear VR glasses to enter the immersive virtual world, and interact with those full, real and delicate virtual characters to satisfy the contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary contemporary The spiritual sustenance that young people need.

At present, some virtual idols are trying to fade away from the "idol identity". Through interaction and immersion experience, they create a companion settings to open up the path of "output emotions" for users. Joi, a holographic virtual girlfriend in the movie "Silver Wing Killer: 2049", will come earlier than bionic robots.

Perhaps in the near future, we will see the bionic robot and virtual Paiberg.

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