China News Service, Beijing, July 23 (Zhongxin Finance reporter Song Yusheng) Virtual human technology seems to be advancing at a speed beyond people's imagination.
At the beginning of this year, the "Liu Yexi" team created a virtual human cycle of 3-4 months.
By July of this year, there are already platforms that allow AI digital people to live broadcast "out of the box".
And such virtual people have begun to enter the field of live streaming.
A few days ago, Baidu Smart Yunxiling digital human live broadcast platform was released, and the 24-hour pure AI live broadcast of hyper-realistic digital human became a reality.
What are the advantages of AI digital human live broadcast?
Will live streamers be replaced?
Li Shiyan, head of Baidu's digital human and robot business, recently accepted an interview with the media.
AI digital human "Xi Jiajia" introduced the live broadcast platform at the Baidu World Congress.
Photo courtesy of Baidu
How much can AI digital people reduce costs?
"There are many businesses who are trapped in the cost of building live broadcast rooms and the cost of broadcasting for employers, including the need for a professional operation team, making it impossible for them to build professional live broadcast rooms."
According to the research data obtained by Li Shiyan, head of Baidu's digital human and robot business, "The monthly salary of a good anchor in a first-tier city is generally about 10,000 yuan, and the venue cost is 30,000-40,000 yuan a year. About 150,000."
And Liu Wei, CEO of Chuangjiang Technology, also calculated an account: Take the team building an electric toothbrush sales live broadcast room as an example, the hardware cost is at least 70,000 yuan, and this does not include the venue and the anchor.
With the blessing of new technologies, the use of AI digital human for live broadcast has become an option to reduce costs.
Take the digital human live broadcast platform recently launched by Baidu Smart Cloud as an example. The platform can realize 24-hour pure AI live broadcast of hyper-realistic digital human beings, and can also switch makeup, hair, clothing and scenes at will.
Li Shiyan said that if the digital human live broadcast platform is used, "the cost can be reduced by more than 30%, or even more than 50%."
Digital people live broadcast platform.
Photo courtesy of Baidu
"Complementary with real people"
When AI digital people can do live broadcasts by themselves, can interact with users, and are "cheaper" than live broadcasters, do people still need live broadcasters?
Li Shiyan said that in the scene of live broadcast with goods, AI digital people mainly "reduce the cost of live broadcast in free time and improve efficiency".
AI digital people are not real people after all.
"When will AI be completely the same as a real person? It is not very predictable at the technical level, but in terms of big logic, we hope to enhance the real person through AI automatic live broadcast, so that the real person's time can be released. Humans can train AI and let AI help him. Do some leisure time, high concurrency demands." Li Shiyan said.
At the same time, the R&D team believes that the emergence of AI is not to replace people, but to free people from repetitive work, so that people can do more creative content.
"Like a live broadcast platform, the first is to use the free time traffic in the live broadcast room to allow digital people and real people to form complementary live broadcasts."
On another level, the R&D team also hopes to "help those uncles and small and micro enterprises in mountainous areas who are not very good at e-commerce to improve their lives" through the AI digital human live broadcast technology.
"One digital person per capita"
From the perspective of R&D personnel, the digital human is entering the practical stage from the cool imagination, and the forms and application scenarios will continue to be enriched.
"As a virtual avatar, a digital human can help each individual in the physical world build a digital image of the metaverse."
Therefore, the R&D team envisages that in the future, human beings will have a large demand for digital people, and even such a demand is "one digital person per capita".
Li Shiyan bluntly stated that the team's goal is to let the digital live broadcast "out of the box", that is to say, "download and install the product, and you can use this product if you can use Windows and Word."
To achieve this goal, standardized products have become the key to lowering the threshold of operation.
The aforementioned technology has made such an imagination possible.
As for the further future, Li Shiyan envisages, "With the continuous progress of VR/AR technology, in the era of spatial computing, the user's sense of immersion and experience will also become stronger. Based on AI technology, various industries can complete the real world. The link to the virtual world may also be realized in the near future." (End)