The "virtual man" arena, based on the law of human balance under "hard power"?

Wen 丨 Morgan Channel

At the moment when the workers are "anti-inner volume", a group of virtual people are "internally rolled".

From the Beijing Spring Festival Gala virtual people Su Xiaomei and Liu Yu performing the song and dance "Galaxy into Dreams", the virtual person Xia Yubing who graduated from CAAM appeared on the CCTV program "Dialogue", the Hunan TV golden file variety show newly added a virtual person to host Xiao Yang, and the virtual person Liu Yexi who exploded on the short video platform staged a Spring Festival "Catch the Demon".

At the Winter Olympics, which collided with the Spring Festival, it became the home of virtual people: "Meet in Beijing" Olympic Cultural Festival At the opening ceremony of the Chinese virtual singer Luo Tianyi's song "Time to sime", there were also winter Olympic weather anchors Feng Xiaoshu, who was based on meteorological anchor Feng Shu, and the Olympic public welfare ambassador virtual people who loved REAI, and who appeared in the event studio to create sports digital people based on athletes.

During the Spring Festival holiday, it seems that when you wake up, the Winter Olympics, the Spring Festival Gala, the news, live broadcasts, short videos, etc. have been occupied by virtual people, and even become competitors for the year-end awards of workers, staging a "virtual person" invasion plan, giving people a sense of "time and space interlacing" trance.

However, it also makes people wonder, the explosive outpouring of "virtual people", bringing "business opportunities" or "crises"? Behind the pursuit of big factories, must it be an "opportunity" for new players? Behind the virtual person's tendency to "perfect", is it really "once and for all"?

First, the "virtual person" invasion plan originated from the capital bureau?

The term "virtual person" may not be unfamiliar to everyone in film and television works: from simone, a popular female star in "Simone" in 2002, to the virtual person Joey projected in "Blade Runner 2049" in 2017, to the runaway NPC that saved the game world in "Out of Control Player", they are full of fantasy and curiosity about the future to "virtual people".

However, when this fantasy lands in the application scenario of virtual idols, virtual hosts, virtual anchors, etc., and invades people's lives with a temporarily immature virtual person technology and perception, it becomes a question of why virtual people are chosen.

Capital failure under the framework of the "metacosm" story?

If 2021 is the most popular, the "meta-universe" is naturally the one who will not give in.

Roblox with the concept of "meta-universe" in the capital market all the way clearance, Zuckerberg led Facebook's "elephant turn", Tencent, ByteDance, NetEase and other Internet giants are ambitious, rubbing hot spots with all walks of life like the "everything can meta-universe", the "meta-universe" concept from secluded to everyone knows.

Everyone wants to take advantage of the east wind of the "meta-universe" to add a fire to their own capital bureau, and the "virtual person", as an indispensable NPC or avatar in the meta-universe world, naturally becomes a part of most companies to tell the story of the meta-universe and one of the earliest application scenarios.

This brings up The embarrassing virtual variety show host Xiao Yang, which is launched by Mango Super Media in the new variety show "Hello, Saturday", which is split from the stage perception. Not only has it not been able to recover the loss of the "Happy Base Camp" off the shelves, but it has also lowered the reputation of the platform. The only highlight moment is probably the rise in the secondary market stock price when the concept is exposed.

However, with the fading of the "meta-universe" heat, and the meta-universe leader Meta announced its financial report on February 2, it began to fall and fall, and the secondary market evaporated a heavy decline of 1.5 trillion yuan, which also made the capital ambition in the "meta-universe" story a void.

When one outlet fades, it is natural that another outlet rises to tell its own story logically and self-consistently, and the "virtual person" who is homologous with the metacosm and needs VR and artificial intelligence support has naturally become the best choice for capital.

Unique "risk controllability"?

The virtual human products that can be seen at present are roughly divided into IP and non-IP categories, IP categories are generally virtual idol-like artist types, and non-IP categories are mostly service-oriented represented by virtual hosts. However, both IP and non-IP have an irreplaceable advantage for humans themselves - the controllability of personality and behavior.

For most IP companies, it means that the idols they cultivate are almost isolated from "accidents", which also has the most guaranteed "safety endorsement" for brands that need to choose a spokesperson.

The agency will no longer have the risk of artists or anchors overturning, resulting in difficulty in recovering the initial investment; the brand will not be damaged because of endorsements and goods problems, because the brand image of the undethical artists is damaged. This is undoubtedly an optimal solution for the entertainment industry and live broadcast anchor industry, which are frequently and frequently driven.

This is also why companies similar to Lehua Entertainment, which rely on the life cycle of artists to absorb gold, have focused on creating virtual female groups and boy bands in recent years, not only avoiding risks, but also getting rid of the original operating model, and there will be a more stable value trend in the capital market and the opportunity to be selected by capital.

As shown by Tianyancha data, by the end of 2021, enterprises in the virtual idol field have obtained 25 financings, and sequoia Capital, Genesis Partner Capital, Vientiane Culture, NetEase Capital and other leading capital institutions are all listed.

For non-IP categories, with the maturity of AI technologies such as NPL (natural language processing) technology, XNR (deep neural network rendering technology), deep learning, etc., replacing real people with customized virtual people will not reduce efficiency due to fatigue, nor will there be accidents due to special circumstances, and it also has the ability to work 7 * 24 hours.

Just like the virtual anchors "N Xiao Black" and "N Xiao Bai" jointly created by the Xiaoice framework and the Daily Economic News, they can be broadcast live uninterruptedly for 7 * 24 hours.

"Forward" vs. "Toward Money"?

On the road of human beings from "carbon-based" to "silicon-based", whether it is a meta-universe or a virtual person, it is a necessary way for scientific and technological development and forward exploration, and no company on the road of "forward" will be willing to miss the torrent of the times.

Moreover, whether from To B or To C, the "virtual person" that belongs to the future direction is itself a gold mine.

From the perspective of To C, Ai Media Consulting survey data shows that the core industry scale of China's virtual idols and the surrounding market size of virtual idols in 2020 will be 3.46 billion yuan and 64.56 billion yuan respectively. It is expected that by 2022, these two figures will be 20.52 billion yuan and 333.47 billion yuan respectively.

On the other hand, according to the "2021 China Virtual Idol Consumption Market Research Report", 48.98% of consumers said that they were willing to buy clothing, shoes and hats, accessories, and commuter bags endorsed by virtual idols; 37.3% of consumers were willing to buy FMCG products endorsed by virtual idols.

Two pieces of data are enough to prove the prospects and potential of virtual people in the To C market.

From the perspective of To B, the advantages of virtual people's controllability and all-weather work are prominent, as well as the embodiment of herd psychology, and the high cost of their own research and development, which will greatly increase the demand of customers in the pan-entertainment industry, consumer goods and specific application scenarios such as finance, cultural tourism, education, and medical care.

This gives the virtual person "upstream" of the underlying technology provider the opportunity to use its own technical output capabilities to carry out virtual person "customized" services for customers with different needs in different scenarios to meet the needs of B-end businesses.

Moreover, in the later stage, with the maturity of technology and the market, the virtual person customization for B-end merchants is not impossible to extend to the C-end to improve its own "global private customization" business.

Second, the "virtual man" arena, the winner's benchmark is "people-oriented"?

Whether it is a technology giant or a newcomer player, it can stand out in the "inner volume" of virtual people, not only the disorderly expansion, but also its products must be inseparable from the thinking and balance of "Humanitude", just like the "Humanism", which is the highest standard for measuring everything in the world in the philosophical school, which will also be an unavoidable benchmark for "virtual people".

Virtual people "people-oriented", in terms of appearanceal significance, lies in how to give them a "human perception", so as not to give people a sense of "separation" from the real world when facing the audience, which is also a common disease of virtual people at present.

Just like the movie "Simone" released in 2002, the reason why Simone can be sought after by thousands of people as a virtual person and help the male protagonist return to the peak of his career is that his appearance is no different from that of real people, making people believe that she is real.

The current situation in China, whether it is Xiao Yang, the host of "Hello, Saturday", or the virtual idols who frequently appear on the stage of The New Year' Festival, the Spring Festival and the party, give people a feeling of being incompatible with the stage and the real group, in addition to the small part of the group obsessed with the "second dimension", it is difficult to give the audience emotional resonance.

This is also one of the reasons why the virtual idol industry has always tended to be niche and cannot reach the full circle of real idols.

Virtual human-to-human interactivity.

At present, most of the virtual anchors or hosts are fixed programs and process texts, and it is difficult to have instant interaction with people.

Even if more and more brands use virtual anchors in live broadcast rooms at present, there are nothing more than two modes: one is a virtual person plus a real anchor, a virtual person drives the atmosphere or explains the content, and the real anchor answers the bullet screen question and interacts with people, such as the sense of "I am not eating in vain" that is the first place in the comprehensive value of the douyin KOL.

The other is that the live broadcast room is completely introduced by virtual people, and interacts with people in a fixed mode, but the specific Q&A needs to go to the customer service page to ask the brand real customer service.

Most of these two forms of live broadcasting are gimmicks under the heat of "virtual people", mainly relying on live anchors or customer service, which undoubtedly gives people a "burdensome feeling" that marketing is greater than the most simplified nature of the transaction process.

How "virtual people" get rid of "personification" in the human world.

Just as at the end of 2021, Vanke Group awarded the Best Newcomer Award of Vanke Headquarters to the first virtual employee, Cui Xiaopan, because the write-off rate of overdue documents prepaid receivables urged by Cui Xiaopan reached 91.44%, which was much higher than that of other real employees.

This kind of "artificial intelligence" created by countless people's hearts and minds competes with real people on the same sweep, even if in the view of Morgan Institute of Commerce, this behavior is more similar to a way of Vanke Group's self-marketing, but once it becomes the norm of "East Shi Gong", it is undoubtedly a disregard for human ethics and a depreciation of human dignity.

This kind of "dimensionality reduction strike" may be able to drive the competition, motivation and curiosity of employees in the early stage, just like the "catfish effect" of putting pike into the catfish school. But through the "excitement period", virtual people and real people working together may not necessarily be the pike fish that can arouse the catfish's "desire to survive", but a shark that swallows up the "energy" of employees.

Inquiry into legal risks

First of all, the virtual person is not a subject with the ability to act in the legal sense, and when the virtual person has an interest dispute with the consumer, the responsibility between the "upstream" virtual person service provider, the "downstream" virtual person holder or the "third party" virtual person operator is not clearly defined.

Second, when the virtual person gets rid of the two-dimensional element, it moves towards "embodiment", similar to the virtual digital person. Then, if the virtual person will be a template for a deceased public figure, or similar to a popular idol, in order to obtain commercial benefits. So, whether this involves the rights and interests of real people, and how to define legal risks.

In particular, when "Blade Runner 2049", K's virtual human girlfriend partner incident reappears or extends, becoming the emotional sustenance of minors and adults, causing more serious social and psychological problems such as the previous short video "Jin Dong Incident" or more serious, how to supervise and define it.

These are all problems that cannot be avoided when "virtual people" enter human society as emerging products, but it is obvious that neither the underlying technology companies, the operators after the scene landing, or the sociologists and jurists are not prepared for the invasion of "virtual people", more like a carnival and marketing feast after the birth of emerging products.

However, in terms of the technological maturity curve, whether the "virtual person" can usher in its own real carnival feast, and the human balance of "hard technology" and "soft culture" will be factors that cannot be ignored to affect its development.