Chapter 313 The “emergence” effect of robots
Everyone from netizens to professionals were shocked.
Technology giants like Baidu, Alibaba, and Huawei have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in autonomous driving. New energy car companies like Wei Xiaoli have also invested heavily in the autonomous driving track. go.
The former hopes to be a service provider, while the latter hopes to empower its own new energy vehicles.
Now a set of palm skills suddenly dropped from the sky, telling you that the technical route pursued by this group of people, whether it is lidar or camera, is wrong, and robots are the way to go.
It's like everyone is practicing martial arts, I'm practicing the Nine Yang Manual, you're practicing evil-proofing swordsmanship, and suddenly someone appears, he's practicing celestial magic, and he knocks everyone down with one move.
This is absolutely unacceptable to everyone.
From Shenhai to Yanjing, from California to Washington, all companies that have anything to do with autonomous driving are holding meetings.
What should we do? Should we continue with the previous plan? Should we continue to invest in the previous investment?
Come on, I don’t know when L4 will be ready. Others’ L4 is already running in the city, and it’s still a complicated road like Shenhai.
Even if you don’t invest, you will still follow Chen Yuanguang’s back on the technical route of robots. The problem is that no one knows how the other party does it.
To put it bluntly, a robot is nothing more than two cameras in its eyes. Isn’t it essentially a machine vision solution?
But it’s all about machine vision. Why does the autonomous driving led by Chen Yuanguang add robots for no reason?
Countless R&D personnel have reread Chen Yuanguang’s recent interview with Yang Ma over and over again. From what Chen Yuanguang said is a disruptive artificial intelligence technology, they definitely don’t believe that robots are added just to show off.
When the Jetta started running in the morning, the employees really didn’t believe it and even wondered if it was an April Fool’s Day joke. In other words, it looked like a robot was driving, but in fact it was running like a carrot. Like some self-driving cars, there are people operating behind them.
Later, as more and more observation videos became available, this possibility was ruled out because the Jetta had not been modified.
Someone also pointed out that didn’t Guangshen need a robot stand-in when he went to Sweden? Could it be that this is a robot stand-in, but there is actually a human behind it?
This rumor was denied by Didi not long after.
“We have determined that the white Jetta with the license plate number Shanghai A**** currently operating in Shenhai City is driven by a robot without any human intervention in the background.
This white Jetta has been tested on more than 50,000 kilometers of real roads across the country, and there has never been a traffic accident during this period. The robot has been observed by Didi’s internal technical team. In addition to picking up and dropping off guests, it can also complete regular operations such as refueling. .”
Didi officials came out and everyone gradually realized that it was really a robot driving the car.
“I’m working on autonomous driving at a major factory. Our entire team was confused. When we saw the news yesterday, we thought Musk was joking.
Saw this morning When I was doing Douyin, I still had illusions and thought it was a special effect.
When the white Jetta was running all over the street, I asked all the people working on self-driving and their mentality collapsed. Can you imagine it? ? Now even ordinary people are relying more and more on assisted driving functions when driving cars. A robot is driving a Jetta around in Shenhai.
There is no assisted driving, no lidar, and I don’t know if there are satellites. Yes, but it has subverted the cognition of all our practitioners. We also know about the group at Tokyo University that Musk mentioned. The professor’s name is Kawarazuka Kento, right?
You may think that Dongda is pursuing this technical route, so this is possible. Guangshen is just carrying forward the existing technical route of the Dongda team.
I want to tell you that the main business of the Dongda team is not autonomous driving at all. Their robots are more like toys. In our industry, they are far from practical. .
A brief introduction to Kento Kawarazuka’s project. In addition to driving robots, they also make cooking robots. His goal is to make a universal robot that can help you do many things like the robot nannies in science fiction movies. So driving is just one of these many skills.
And he is only an assistant professor, and now he is a visiting scholar at ETH Zurich.
The robot he built can only operate in a specific environment and can only drive at a speed of 5km/h. However, the robot built by Guangshen can almost speed through Shenhai City at the upper limit of the speed.
His previous robot was a bit too much to be regarded as a joke, but absolutely no one really paid attention to this technical route, and I definitely don’t believe that Guangshen did this project because he was inspired by him.
Finally, everyone is now waiting for news about what the technical route is and what we will do next. According to my latest news, Mr. Lei should go and find out. Everyone, just wait.
Our internal communication group said that the longer this white Jetta was driven in Shenhai City, the more excited everyone became. ”
Before noon, a lot of people want to experience the Jetta, which is said to be the first robot to drive on the road.
There are Internet celebrities who are enjoying the popularity, and there are also employees.
In just half a day, scalpers were already selling white Jetta tickets on Xianyu.
"Boss, there are scalpers on Xianyu selling tickets for the white Jetta."
"What? The white Jetta? Is it the white Jetta driven by the robot created by the God of Light?" Can it be sold too? When the head of NIO’s autonomous driving team heard this, his first reaction was that he was a powerful scalper.
"Yes, that's the one."
"How to sell it?" He was extremely curious, how could they sell it.
"We make a reservation first and reserve the place where we want to get on the bus. Then during the taxi process, they will choose the place where we want to get on the bus as a passing point. Then when the taxi reaches the passing point, we can just get on the bus."
“But how can they guarantee that they will be able to call us?”
“So we need to make an appointment first. They must have many mobile phones internally, and then it seems that they have internal information in the traffic management department and can get the nearest Jetta. They will place saturation orders around the location of the white Jetta at the same time.
In the end, the order will be successful.
What should I do if the order is successful but the person has not arrived yet. , as long as you are willing to pay, Didi has an overtime waiting fee and can wait for you for up to three hours
That's more than enough time.
The scalper showed me their successful orders. They had already placed a successful order. "
The scalper's operation had to make him sigh. There are snakes and rats, and the scalpers' sense of smell is very sensitive.
"How much? "
" 50,000 RMB, he said that it requires multiple mobile phones to be placed when the order is saturated, and the success rate may not be guaranteed, so the charge will be very high. ”
"Here, the company will reimburse the money."
For individuals, this money is very expensive, but for companies or Internet celebrities, this money is not unaffordable.
The Didi driver was very desperate. Carrots came to grab business, and robots came to grab business. For a moment, he felt that he was at the bottom of the food chain. For example, Lei Jun went to find Chen Yuanguang for information, while some corporate executives went to Lin Jia directly.
Since the Jetta incident began to unfold in the morning, Lin Jia’s phone calls have not been interrupted.
"Robin, don't worry, Guangjia Aerospace will not be in the driverless business. The robot is only for technical verification."
The first person to call was Robin from Baidu. He couldn't help but be anxious. , Baidu’s basic base is about to be hollowed out by Tencent.
Baidu had no choice but to allin its autonomous driving and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangjia Aerospace. If the entire framework cooperation agreement is fully implemented, the total amount will exceed 20 billion RMB.
This contract has not even been signed for a year. Now you are telling me that robot driverless driving is the future?
Robin couldn't sit still and threw real money at her. Aren't we strategic partners? Why don't I, a strategic partner, know that your technology has reached L4?
Neither Robin nor Baidu can accept it. Baidu still has more than 100 billion in cash on its books, but the market value of Baidu in the Hong Kong stock market is about to fall below 80 billion RMB.
“Robin, because of the confidentiality agreement, I don’t even know the specific technical details behind this.
I can’t give you a conclusion as to whether the relevant technology will be open source, and the technology What is the route?
This project does not belong to Guangjia Aerospace. It is a project led by Yuan Guang and participated by some young scholars from the Natural Science Foundation of China. It has nothing to do with Guangjia Aerospace. I will not know the time. Where to go before you do?
I know you are in a hurry, but don’t worry, I will share the information with you as soon as I know.”
Robin on the other end of the phone was scolding her, it was strange that she was not in a hurry.
But it was impossible for him to get angry at Lin Jia. He had to be gentle and gentle on the phone. He was thinking that if he were in front of Lin Jia, he would probably shed tears and stage a scene where he would cry to death. Dong Zhuo.
"Mr. Lin, I don't mean to blame you at all. It's just that this is related to the livelihood of the entire Baidu and thousands of Baidu employees. Please forgive me for being a little anxious." Robin said.
Robin was so anxious that he couldn't sit still just by looking at Baidu's tragic plunge in the Hong Kong stock market.
Not to mention being criticized by shareholder representatives and ridiculed by netizens at subsequent board meetings. These are trivial matters compared with the plummeting stock price.
"Robin, don't worry. Although I can't give you any results or make any promises, based on my understanding of Yuan Guang, I won't be alone in the end.
But I will work with everyone. To share benefits.
In the past, whether it was topological semi-metal or perovskite cells, we have licensed technology and shared benefits with upstream and downstream companies.
Not to mention. Talking about autonomous driving is not only related to technology giants such as Baidu, Huawei, and Ali, but also to car manufacturers such as BYD, Weilai, and Xiaomi. From the national level, we will definitely not be allowed to dominate.”
"That's good, Mr. Lin, please inform me as soon as possible when you have news." Robin was very humble and felt extremely desperate in his heart.
To be honest, technology sharing is absolutely bad news for Baidu. It would be better for them to be the only one.
Baidu boasts that its advantage lies in its leadership in autonomous driving related technologies. If you share the technology, Baidu's leading advantage will disappear.
The cost of the driverless online ride-hailing jointly developed by Luobo Kuaipao, Huawei and Wuling Hongguang? Fight for supply chain management? Isn't this asking for death?
If there is a technology monopoly, then Baidu still has value. Once technology is shared, Baidu will be truly doomed.
He is very desperate now, just like a patient diagnosed with cancer waiting for the results of the second follow-up examination.
The calls came one after another, and Lin Jia's words were pretty much the same. She only did one thing all morning, and that was to answer the phone.
"Yuan Guang, this is the general situation." Lin Jia said.
Chen Yuanguang said: "You can tell them not to worry, because this technology is not used for autonomous driving at all.
It costs so much to develop autonomous driving It’s not cost-effective at all.
The reason why we demonstrate driverless technology is simply to verify the rationality of the technology.
The cost of the entire robot is close to 50 million RMB. The manufacturing cost alone does not include technology research and development investment and patent fees.
So it is simply not cost-effective in the field of driverless driving.
Its real purpose and actual technical details have nothing to do with driverless driving.
Including its iterated self-driving algorithm, we will open source it in the future, but even if it is open source, it probably won’t be of much help.
So there is no need to be so nervous. You only need to tell them the cost. Even if the subsequent process is optimized and the cost is reduced through mass production, it is impossible to reduce the cost to less than one million.
As for the driverless algorithm, it actually doesn’t make much sense. The driverless algorithm it trained is only for this car and this robot. Even if it changes a little, it can’t be called L4." Chen Yuanguang said.
This made Lin Jia very curious, "How on earth is this done? "
Chen Yuanguang said: "You can understand that we have trained a specialized robot driver, which only does one thing, and its experience is extracted from the human brain.
How to put it, you can understand that we use a brain-computer device to extract the brain waves of online ride-hailing drivers, and then feed these brain waves as raw data to the robot.
Then the robot starts to try to drive based on these data, first on experimental roads, then in parks, then in new areas of some cities, and finally on the road generally.
There is no human intervention in the middle. The initial model will drive, but it is limited to the most basic driving rules.
After feeding the online ride-hailing driver’s brainwave data on a large scale while driving, it began to learn this skill. You can understand that it copied the skill.
But we don’t know the principle behind it or how it is implemented. It is somewhat similar to the emergence of the field of artificial intelligence. ”
The emergence effect in the field of artificial intelligence refers to a sudden increase in the performance of the original model, a steep jump in the data upward curve.
Like the "emergence" of deep learning, there are There are two meanings. One is that as the scale of the neural network, the speed of the training machine, and the number of samples continue to increase, after reaching a certain scale, there will suddenly be a "quantitative change to a qualitative change", and the neural network's capabilities will "emerge" and the image recognition effect will be improved. Significant improvement. The second level is that deep learning performs extremely well in the field of image recognition. This ability has also been rapidly extended to other computer fields, and has even changed other disciplines, and the application range of the ability has also emerged.
Obviously, what Chen Yuanguang is referring to is that when we use human brain data to train the robot's artificial intelligence, its skill level "emerges."
(End of this chapter)