Chapter 2198 The shelf life of gimmicks

Zhou Shaoning heard what he meant, "Are you saying that Rokid is just a temporary sensation?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Others don't know, but we don't know? This is a very immature product. It is still far from mature artificial intelligence, especially voice intelligence. In the short term, Rokid, Be it Siri, you can rely on freshness to gain a certain market popularity. But after this freshness, in the final analysis, you still have to rely on the product to speak for itself."

Zhou Shaoning said: "I heard that Apple is going to increase investment in the development of Siri?"

"Really?" Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "Good news!"

Zhou Shaoning was slightly startled, "Good news?"

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "If Apple wants to increase its investment in Siri, it only means that even Apple doesn't understand this product now. I feel relieved now. Li Zairong and I only reached a verbal agreement. After he returns, I will definitely communicate with the business executives, but I am really worried that they will react and not cooperate."

Even Apple has misjudged this type of product, so it can be guaranteed.

Samsung will definitely be fooled!

Zhou Shaoning didn't quite understand, and said with a wry smile: "Is this product really not good?"

Zhou Buqi said accurately: "The short-term enthusiasm is actually to speculate on concepts, but how can artificial intelligence be so easy? Do you know what the nature of Rokid and Siri is? This is general artificial intelligence, and it is universal voice. This path It’s just a bottomless pit!”

Zhou Shaoning himself is also a scientist.

But the topic being discussed now is so sophisticated that even the world’s top artificial intelligence experts find it difficult to make such a judgment.

The complexity of choosing a fork in the road in technical direction is far higher than that of commercial choices, and the probability of failure is higher.

After Rokid and Siri became popular around the world, this type of universal voice AI assistant seemed to have suddenly become a major investment hot spot!

It's like the era of artificial intelligence has arrived.

But in fact this is not the case at all.

After a year and a half, the industry suddenly realized it.

I finally understand that products like Siri are an unimaginably complex track.

Then, there was a shift from general AI to the research and development of specialized AI.

For example, AI that specializes in photo retouching, AI that specializes in painting, AI that specializes in script writing, AI that specializes in document processing, etc.

It's like Ziweiyun wants to develop server chips.

There is a choice, whether to make a general-purpose chip or a special-purpose chip?

It is too difficult to make a universal chip!

Or making dedicated chips has a higher success rate and better performance.

In a field like artificial intelligence, universal products are almost impossible.

It is easier to do something dedicated to a certain field.

Since then, Apple has lowered the weight of Siri as a product, and Siri has slowly become a dispensable and useless product in the iPhone, no longer as high-spirited as when it was first launched.

Even the field of artificial intelligence around the world has begun to resist general AI and only conduct research and development of specialized AI.

However, one engineer named Sam Altman was unconvinced.

I want to fight against the whole world!

The entire industry is not optimistic about general AI, but he believes that general AI is the future, and he will definitely be able to create a more mature general AI product that is truly commendable!

He was determined to get this done.

However, after searching around, all the Silicon Valley giants rejected it, and no one was optimistic about it.

If you have no choice, start your own business.

Trouble strikes again.

After the project was established, he was extremely busy and could not find investors willing to provide money to support him. With no choice, he traveled across the ocean and came to China, hoping that domestic Internet entrepreneurs and industry elites would recognize his project.

It's a pity that no one in China recognizes him.

I submitted many applications, but they were all rejected one by one.

At the most critical moment, a savior jumped out and helped him.

This person is Elon Musk.

In fact, Musk is not very optimistic about this project. He is willing to give money, but not as an investment, but as a charity... He regards Sam's project as an artificial intelligence charity product, and it is all a donation.

Then Sam Altman got the money and started doing it.

A few years later, a universal AI product that became popular around the world appeared, namely the famous ChatGPT.

At this moment, the whole world suddenly woke up.

It turns out that general AI is really good!

Major technology companies quickly transformed and began to imitate ChatGPT to develop their own large language models.

The development of any industry is full of twists and turns.

Although Zhou Buqi is not clear about the rights and wrongs of this, one thing he knows very well is that the future development of Apple's Siri will be very bad.

When Siri was first launched, it was really eye-catching.

But it won’t work in a few years.

Ultimately, this universal AI voice assistant is too ambitious.

However, the current artificial intelligence technology is far from that level of development, and there is still a long way to go before we can reach the ideal level of AI voice assistant.

This is the advantage of Zhou Buqi.

Because from today's perspective, Rokid and Siri are both the most popular AI products in the field of artificial intelligence in the world. So much so that almost all investments in the artificial intelligence industry revolve around imitating similar products like Rokid and Siri.

This is a huge industry misjudgment.

Apple doesn't know, Samsung doesn't know.

Zhou Shaoning didn't know either.

But Zhou Buqi didn't know.

This provides him with room for commercial operation.

Zhou Shaoning couldn't understand why Rokid couldn't do it. He claimed to be a scientist, but he couldn't give an accurate judgment no matter what. Zhou Buqi, who doesn’t understand any technical skills, what does he know?

However, Zhou Shaoning had no dissatisfaction in his heart.

The most important factor for success in the business market is luck, or the entrepreneur's intuition... There is no reason to say, the whole world is not optimistic about him, he thinks it will work, and then he actually does it.

In the face of intuition, all principles, logic, policies, strategies, science and technology, and marketing strategies must give way, just like a bet.

The future of a company depends entirely on the sense of smell of an entrepreneur.

So many successful people are more or less superstitious.

Regarding Rokid, Zhou Shaoning didn't understand Zhou Buqi's choice.

However, everyone is so certain, so how can there be any truth? At least in the past few years, Boss Zhou has never missed a major decision!

"It should be the same this time, right?"

Such a voice sounded in Zhou Shaoning's mind, and he unknowingly developed a certain superstition about Boss Zhou.

Sure enough, Zhou Buqi repeated his point of view the next moment, "When the popularity of Rokid passes and the market calms down and we look at this product again, we will find problems. I originally wanted to install Rokid into the Aster series of mobile phones. In fact, the purpose is to create a gimmick for this series of mobile phones, a gimmick that can beat the iPhone. Gimmicks always have a shelf life."

Zhou Shaoning's mentality is relatively peaceful.

If Boss Zhou's attitude is ambiguous and undecided about this matter, then he will definitely argue with reason and conduct an analysis from his own professional perspective.

But now that Boss Zhou is so sure, there is no need to discuss it.

Discussion is a waste of time.

It is enough to trust Him unconditionally.

Zhou Shaoning said with a smile: "I understand what you mean. We need to sign a long-term contract with Samsung within the shelf life of Rokid. After Rokid's shelf life has passed, it will be too late for Samsung to regret it, and it can only pay to Ziweixing every year." Pay a huge service fee.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Yes, I told him that he can sign a 3-5 year contract. I guess Li Zairong is convening an overnight meeting with senior executives. I don't know how many years it will be signed. However, making money It’s still secondary.”

"Oh?" Zhou Shaoning raised his eyebrows, "Is there any strategic value?"

Zhou Buqi said: "The global development of Samsung mobile phones is unstoppable. Apple cannot stop it, and neither Asda can stop it. It is conceivable that in the next many years, Samsung will be Asda's largest player in the field of Android mobile phones." The main competitor. Samsung’s mobile phones are a powerful promotion platform.”

Zhou Shaoning was shocked and vaguely understood something, "Rokid wants to use Samsung and Asda's mobile phone platforms to occupy the Android side? To compete with Apple's Siri?"

Zhou Buqi said speechlessly: "What a parallel? How can Apple's level of artificial intelligence compare with Ziweixing? It's not embarrassing enough to be tied with Siri. The current Rokid is many times more powerful than Siri. . After a while, the popularity of this universal voice assistant gimmick disappears, and Apple will react and will definitely reduce its investment in Siri. By then, the gap between Siri and Rokid will become wider and wider. They They are no match at all.”

Zhou Shaoning understood what he meant and took a deep breath. "Ziweixing will not reduce its investment in Rokid. On the contrary, it will continue to increase its investment in this product!"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "That's right."

"Then you're not optimistic about it?"

Zhou Shaoning felt that he was a bit contradictory.

Zhou Buqi said: "You may have misunderstood. The Rokid installed on Aisida's mobile phone should be the voice version of Rokid to be precise. The voice version of Rokid authorized by Samsung will also be this voice version. But don't forget, the real original version Rokid is actually a text version of the AI ​​assistant installed in Helo.”

You don't even know how to crawl, and you just want to run?

If you want to make general artificial intelligence, you must first start with words.

Once the writing is developed, then move on to speech.

On the domestic computer chat software Helo, there is a "Rokid Assistant", which is in the friend list just like a normal friend.

Users can chat with this Rokid assistant and ask him some simple questions.

Every interaction with Rokid is actually a training for it.

There was even a time when, in order to improve the effectiveness of this product, the Rokid project team even set up a "customer service team" behind the scenes.

When users ask simple questions, it is real AI that is answering; if it is some experienced users, Weibo influencers, or some complex questions, it is possible that real people are answering behind the scenes.

Through external promotion through this model, influence will be formed, and more people will actively participate in interacting with Rokid, and then continue to train it.

Of course the voice version of Rokid will also work.

But it's too far away.

First, the original text version of Rokid must be trained and the large language model must be polished. Then based on the original Rokid, we will launch Rokid car version, Rokid voice version, Rokid Pro version, Rokidchat version, etc.

Artificial intelligence is a track that Ziweixing has long determined to focus on, and it is the core technical pillar.

Even if it is a general AI, it will not give up!