Raven CEO Lu Cheng: Raven R is not only a smart speaker, but also a six-axis emotional robot

Fei-Fei Li, a global artificial intelligence expert and tenured professor at Stanford University, once said that emotions and feelings are the future direction of artificial intelligence. "Now our AI uses logical methods to judge emotions. Because logic represents IQ, and emotions represent EQ. Human emotions are very rich. In the future, moving from emotions to feelings will be the future direction of artificial intelligence."

What will happen when machines have emotions and feelings? It sounds like the era of the Terminator. But in fact, under human control, machines have never gotten out of control.

Last Saturday, at an event in Geek Park, when Baidu Raven CEO Lu Cheng unplugged the power of Raven R, Raven R instantly hung its head, as if it was making a prophecy about the future 100 years later - in front of humans, machines are still just machines, and humans will always have authority over machines.

Therefore, Lu Cheng said that Raven R is not only a smart speaker, but also a six-axis emotional robot. Yes, even from the perspective of appearance, Raven R, which has six axes and can rotate at will , is no longer a simple smart speaker. Instead, it is closer to a robotic arm that is exactly the same as before.

Let's return to reality from the future. At present, artificial intelligence is still superficial, and even for human language expression, it only has a partial understanding. It can understand voice, but what about semantics and emotions? You must know that the same sentence, with different tones and emotions, may express completely opposite meanings. Although we now have countless so-called smart speakers, how many of them can really understand your emotions? At present, it seems that only Baidu's raven R has such a function.

If emotions are the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence, then raven R has at least been able to perceive and respond. In the demonstration, when Lu Cheng's tone changed during his speech, raven R 's movements and rhythm also changed accordingly. This is a great progress, because the machine is trying to communicate with humans. In fact, raven R 's head, that is, the LED dot matrix screen with a 19x19 layout like a go board, keeps changing patterns to express the owner's mood when the tone changes. It may not capture the real side, but at least it is trying to imitate. Continuous learning is an important manifestation of artificial intelligence.

Just as Lu Cheng said, when talking about robots, the first thing that comes to mind is its shape, which is very superficial. I personally think the most important thing is its position in your heart, because my feeling is that no matter what this thing looks like, as long as it is a tool in your mind, you will not want to have emotional communication with it, but only imperative communication with it.

Taking cats as an example, Lu Cheng said that he would talk to cats every day, even though he knew that cats could not understand him, he would still talk to them. This was because he did not regard cats as a tool, but as an emotional partner.

Where will smart speakers go in the future? Will they be the kind that starts playing music as soon as you wake them up and can only help you recharge your phone bill, or will they be smart companions that can understand the tone of your voice and the pace of your steps? Obviously, Lu Cheng believes that the latter is the direction of smart speakers. For this reason, he even said that the reason why no one uses the voice assistant on the phone is because it is more like a tool than your partner.

In order to make Raven R more like a companion with more considerate functions, Lu Cheng said that the developer interface will be opened in July this year, all source codes and all interfaces will be opened, allowing developers to add all functions to it. At present, Raven R has been put into the cup holder of your car. When you drive in the future, Raven R will be in your passenger seat, just like a small navigation or DJ in a science fiction movie. The machine not only understands your mood, but also adjusts the atmosphere.

In addition, Lu Cheng also gave raven R some funny elements, such as replacing the head of raven R with a fan. From then on, in the hot summer, you will have a fully intelligent fan with facial recognition function that will always follow your face to blow air. There is another function, raven R has another function, which is a makeup mirror with fill light. When girls are putting on makeup, both hands are often occupied. At this time, you can put the mirror on raven R , and it will always shine on your face to help you fill light when putting on makeup.

Of course, in addition to these functions, there are more functions waiting to be unlocked by developers. In terms of the exploration of smart speakers and artificial intelligence, raven R is undoubtedly the most active. At least in the world, there is only one smart speaker that can express emotions and make corresponding actions, and make artificial intelligence express emotions .

Perhaps, as Fei-Fei Li said, future artificial intelligence must have emotions and feelings, and being able to understand your voice is just the first and most basic step. I hope Raven R can lead the smart speaker industry to a new way of thinking, such as being more like a robot rather than a dumb speaker.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.