Recently, a peculiar scene was staged in Beijing Fuxue Hutong Primary School: Beijing EvolverrobotThe “Made in China” robot “Little Fat” produced by Technology Co., Ltd. entered the primary school classroom. A dozen elementary school students about 1.2 meters tall were sitting around. Under the operation of the staff, Xiaopang “talked, learned and sang”, which attracted constant laughter in the classroom.
“Hello, master, I’m Xiaopang. Is there anything I can do for you?” In the dynamic change of color, Xiaopang greeted everyone in Sichuan dialect. The relevant person in charge of Beijing Evolution Robot Technology Co., Ltd. introduced that in addition to the Sichuan dialect, Xiaopang also added a “voice-changing” voice package, including impatient,mechanical, duck, ethereal, slow, electric, etc. After the user downloads, the voice package is stored on the robot.
This intelligent service robot, which is positioned as a new family companion, is chubby, with a height of 1024 mm, a tumbler-like shape, and an “arm” on the left and right sides. As it dances, its arms will automatically stretch out. Because of its cute appearance, interesting expression packs and vivid voice packs, it is very popular among elementary school students.
In September last year, the home version of the service robot Xiaopang was officially released to the public. By the end of last year, more than 4,000 units had been sold. This shows a strong development space for the emerging artificial intelligence consumer market. “In the early stage of sales, we also did crowdfunding, and then through the first batch of seed users, word of mouth, we got a wider sales channel.” said Cai Yueri, a control system expert at Beijing Evolution Robot Technology Co., Ltd.
Make Robots more and more anthropomorphic and truly become a part of life. This is the original intention of Beijing Evolution Robot Technology Co., Ltd. to develop Xiaopang. However, for the emergence of new things, the public does need time to understand and accept. Children seem to do this better than adults. When Xiao Pang first appeared in Gong Ning’s house, his 6-year-old daughter Mao Mao was full of curiosity about this chubby robot that was as tall as herself. It took only a few minutes for Mao Mao to go from hiding behind the sofa and watching from a distance, to falling in love with Xiao Pang and having a happy conversation with Xiao Pang.
For intelligent robots, adults appear more rational and mature. Ge Chenhong, a professor at the Department of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, believes that the most important functions of intelligent robots should be in terms of services, such as playing music, weather forecasting, telling stories to children, and air purification. When the intelligent robot integrates the three functions of education, entertainment and service, it will meet the extensive needs of parents for family service robots.
Home intelligent robots also have some potential consumers, and their information acquisition of intelligent robots is still in science fiction films. “I love watching sci-fi movies, and my impression is that intelligent robots should be like Transformers or Dabai. Occasionally, I also fantasize that I can fall in love with an invisible intelligent robot like the hero in “Her”. It’s pretty cool!” said Li Liwei, a freshman majoring in animation design at the Beijing Film Academy.
There are many potential consumers like Li Liwei. At present, in the field of household intelligent robots, although the market demand is strong, the products are still mainly prototypes, and there are not many real mass productions. Even if mass production can be achieved, it is difficult to achieve full sales. Because the public does not know much about intelligent robots at present and lacks basic knowledge, there is still a certain gap between real home intelligent robots and those with powerful functions in the movie works under the background of weak artificial intelligence technology and production. “We need time to let the public understand real and interesting intelligent robots.” Cai Yueri said.
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