BYD Continuing the Robot Craze — Is This Like The Smartphone Revolution Or VR Headsets?
BYD is reportedly planning to show a humanoid robot for the first time soon. Well, it sort of already has, with a teaser image posted over the weekend on WeChat from its Di Space Zhengzhou site.
“Notably, the account is a local channel for BYD’s offline science education and experience venues, not the company’s main official platform. BYD has yet to confirm the timing of the reveal or any product details,” CnEVPost shares. “Still, Di Space is positioned for hands-on, interactive displays. That has led to widespread expectations that the early-August event will be more than a concept unveiling, and instead the first public showing of a physical prototype.”
“My goal is to put two or three robots in every store,” BYD executive vice president Stella Li also said just about a month ago.
I’m sure robots will be useful for some things, but I continue to wonder about this robot craze. Almost every business you call now starts off with an automated help agent. Aside from sometimes directing you to the department you need to get in touch with, I find these largely annoying and useless. I have developed the habit of repeatedly saying “can I talk to a human?” or “please connect me with a human” from the beginning — it’s normally the best, quickest way to actually get the help I need. (I encourage you to try it out — it’s such a relief, and sometimes funny — my daughters and even sometimes my wife cracks up at this.) Are humanoid robots going to be really useful and better at doing a bunch of things humans do, or is it just the fantastical idea of this (and The Jetsons) that is hyping the whole industry?
Of course, beyond and before BYD, Tesla, XPENG, Hyundai, and other automakers have jumped into the robot space. We could say the “robot industry,” but have they really jumped into an industry yet, or just an idea of an industry?
Stella Li mentions using humanoid robots to help customers in BYD stores. Will these robots really adequately replace or even supplement humans? Are they going to be more useful than a basic computer?
Other ideas that are common about the use of humanoid robots include doing the dishes, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and reading bedtime stories to kids. Are humanoid robots really going to do the dishes well? Maybe … but I’m skeptical. But let’s say they can. Is that worth $10,000? Well, for people who can spend $10,000 without noticing, sure. How many households is that? Maybe it’s enough to support the industry. I don’t know. As far as cleaning the house, will robots know where every little thing should go? Hmm…. As far as vacuuming, we already have robot vacuums. (As it turns out, I prefer using the normal vacuum rather than the robot vacuum most of the time, but even if that’s not normal, we don’t need a humanoid to do the vacuuming.) Cooking dinner? Sorry, I don’t think so, but, again, if robots get really good at this, it will probably be specialized robots designed superbly for this task, not humanoid robots. Or maybe I’m wrong. Reading bedtime stories to the kids? Better not.
Maybe I’m a tech laggard here, but this feels a lot like the VR (virtual reality) craze. It feels like something tech companies (including automakers now) think will be a big hit, invest a ton of money into as the race against each other, and then discover is a dud. I initially thought about comparing the robot craze to NFTs, but it’s much more hardware intensive of course. I also thought about Bill Gates hyping up the Segway before it was launched, but that was basically just a one-company story. But perhaps humanoid robots are more like smartphones and I just don’t get it or believe in it yet. What do you think?
