Silicone dolls, according to mainstream e-commerce platforms, belong to the category of adult products, mostly used by users to meet their physiological needs. Compared to other adult products, silicone dolls have the characteristic of mimicking the human body to the greatest extent, becoming a "girlfriend" who cannot speak. After integrating with large models, this "girlfriend" can not only speak but also has preliminary human perception and decision-making capabilities. In the future, it may achieve real emotional interactions with humans, allowing you to have an intellectual relationship. AI girlfriends might really be coming. 01 Connecting to Baidu's Large Model "At the end of the year before last, after ChatGPT was first released, many friends came to congratulate me, saying 'Uncle Chun, you bet right,' this trend was simply made for you," said Lin Degang with a smile. Obviously, he had been preparing for many years. At the end of 2002, Lin Degang established Chunshuitang in Beijing to sell sex toys through vertical e-commerce. Because of the name of his store, everyone calls him "Uncle Chun." He has been navigating the adult product field for over 20 years, creating one of China's top ten sex toy shopping websites. In 2017, Lin Degang focused his company’s resources on silicone dolls, planning to develop humanoid robots. He set up his operations in Guangdong, where many doll manufacturers are located. After silicone dolls went on the market in 2020, the benefits were good. In 2022, the sales revenue of humanoid dolls increased by 89.03% year-on-year, so he continued to develop robotic dolls. In his view, people’s emotional value is not just about sex; it also comes from emotions, life, reproduction, and economy. For robotic dolls to have a stronger sense of immersion, they need to have both physical and emotional attributes, not only satisfying partners in sex but also being proactive in daily life and replacing humans in light labor. He needed to make the robotic dolls realistic enough, meaning they should look and feel like real people. The first step was difficult; at that time, manufacturers used skin-covering technology. "In August 2021, the skin-covering technology we adopted involved point-to-point adhesive bonding of the silicone skin to the head shell. Once a few points inside detached, the robotic doll easily turned into a 'Shar Pei.' After completing the process in August, we didn’t go into mass production." At that time, Lin Degang found that the products made with skin-covering technology had their expressions collapse (facial sagging) in about 3-5 days after product testing. Later, Lin Degang did two things: one was using injection molding technology to combine the appearance and bones of the robotic doll, and the other was studying the mechanical structure to ensure that the viscous liquid silicone could still allow nearly 400 parts inside the robotic skull to operate successfully after injection. According to Chunshuitang’s 2022 annual report, its second-generation commercial humanoid robot completed its development. Chunshuitang spent about four years and 20 million yuan on R&D for silicone humanoid robots. But it was not enough; the robotic dolls still lacked thinking ability. "We spent a few more years to give the humanoid dolls a local operating system and motion control system, as well as an AI brain." In early 2023, Chunshuitang’s silicone dolls integrated with Baidu’s Wenxin large model. Lin Degang stated: "AI is third-party; we don’t develop AI ourselves." Whether humanoid robots can provide a good user experience depends on the preparation of both the adult product manufacturers and the AI large models. Manufacturers have been preparing for many years, so how did the integration with the Wenxin large model perform? In a sample video, a robotic doll named "Yuanbao" stands in a Lolita-style dress. The robotic doll has delicate makeup, can turn its head autonomously, support glasses with its hands, wave, shake hands, and make expressions like blinking and slightly opening its lips while interacting with people. She can have voice conversations with humans, with her voice being an electronic female voice from iFlytek, and she follows human instructions to dance. It is said that she can lift objects weighing about 2 kilograms, replacing some light labor. Compared to real humans, "Yuanbao’s" language and action responses are relatively slow. Her facial parts—eyelids, eyeballs, and lips—are relatively flexible, but she lacks human micro-expressions. Her upper limbs can move flexibly, while her lower limbs cannot move, so she cannot walk or perform leg-supported postures. Reportedly, "Yuanbao" is Chunshuitang’s third-generation robot, a commercial lead-generation marketing robot, and her face will also be used for the first batch of household companion robots. During the merchants' trial of "Yuanbao," some feedback was given, such as the need to enhance the robot's sound reception in noisy environments like malls. Chunshuitang’s software development engineer Zhi Ke is responsible for the integration work between Chunshuitang and the Wenxin large model. He stated that the integration of the robot with the large model is achieved by calling the API through the Android system inside the robot to obtain AI capabilities. After integrating with the Wenxin large model, the silicone doll robot can adapt to most daily life scenarios, providing stronger two-way interaction. The sense of real human interaction is enhanced. Chunshuitang’s robotic dolls have four of the five human senses—hearing, touch, vision, and smell—thanks to sensors, and they can make 20 facial expressions. Data is analyzed using large models to output information. It is said that she can speak dialects and multiple languages, using her skeleton’s 780 mechanical parts to perform physical actions such as touching, hugging, and shaking hands. She can smile and be surprised, her mouth moves when she speaks, she understands human language, and she shows concern. When she "smells" alcohol, smoke, or bad odors on a human, she reminds them verbally to take a bath or brush their teeth. During sexual activity, the robot collects partner data, providing appropriate reactions and expressions. The robotic dolls can be understanding or have strong personalities. By intelligently recognizing human positions, postures, sight, semantic emotions, etc., the robotic doll gives feedback through AI. Unlike ordinary smart devices, the robotic doll can engage in multi-round and two-way conversations with humans. "She can recognize if the partner (doll owner) came home late, and if the partner complains, she will comfort with words like 'Is the boss really annoying?' or 'Did you get scolded?'," Lin Degang gave an example. If the doll owner doesn’t hug her for five days, the doll might even throw a tantrum. Additionally, through large models, buyers can set the pre-factory personality of the robotic doll to be lively and cute, intellectual and considerate, cold, or arrogant. The robotic doll will also present different personalities based on the buyer’s training, providing personalized feedback. The robotic doll collects keywords during conversations, marks the doll owner's preferences, and optimizes its responses accordingly. Chunshuitang stated that the robotic doll will mark key information based on its historical chats with the doll owner and initiate conversations after understanding the other party’s interests and hobbies. Since the robotic doll can store historical dialogues and has extensive memory and common knowledge, it can "chat" with people about their favorite music, literature, and movies. Therefore, the doll owner will feel like they are chatting with a real person. Overall, silicone dolls integrated with AI are a step closer to intelligence but still have a distance to go to become bionic humans. Lin Degang said that in the future, additional motion and AI capabilities will be added to the robotic dolls based on consumer price acceptance and feedback. 02 The Erotic Mode Is Still on the Way Currently, Baidu Wenxin has not specifically customized or trained a model for erotic scene applications. "In erotic scenarios, for users' sensitive words, AI might respond with 'Please use civilized language.' We are training small models to refine these scenarios." At present, Baidu provides a training platform for enterprises, and Chunshuitang has dedicated personnel to feed data for testing to train the large model's effect in erotic scenarios. Considering that silicone doll robots are adult products, Chunshuitang’s companion robots will have two modes: daily mode and erotic mode. "Once it switches to erotic mode, it might be a small model or a local behavior tree running to handle these interactions." It is reported that robotic dolls for overseas sales have already been tested with foreign large models. "We will try to integrate ChatGPT," Chunshuitang’s technical staff said. Users can have intimate verbal interactions with robots integrated with overseas large models, but this may also involve content policy restrictions such as prohibiting fraudulent, misleading, discriminatory, violent, or child pornography content. But it is certain that integrating with overseas large models will allow a broader scope for the "erotic mode." Minimax's overseas chat product Talkie integrates GPT-3.5 Turbo Variant, as detailed in "Sex, Lies, and Large Models." 03 Getting Closer to Real People China’s single economy drives solo consumption, such as "solo dining," "solo travel," and "lonely consumption," opening up a promising market. In this regard, Lin Degang’s household companion robots still plan to be mainly sold through e-commerce platforms like JD.com, Taobao, and Pinduoduo, along with overseas cross-border e-commerce to operate both B2B and B2C lines. However, online sales also bring a headache: silicone humanoid robots require a strong experience element, but consumers can't touch them. Typically, consumers view products through videos and pictures, relying on consumption experiences and usage to make online shopping decisions. The market for silicone dolls is narrow, and few people have seen silicone dolls in person. The high unit price of these silicone humanoid robots also increases the difficulty of decision-making. Most people may just take a look and leave. With AI capabilities, the usage scenarios of silicone dolls expand beyond just home and daily life. Lin Degang discussed strategic plans, not ruling out future offline product displays. Summarizing previous experiences with offline adult product stores, he believes robotic dolls can first enter shopping centers for non-sexual purposes for display and interaction. "Silicone dolls themselves are handsome guys and beautiful girls, which can attract traffic for stores." After entering shopping malls, AI-integrated physical dolls can replace milk tea shop employees for light labor, such as "Yuanbao" acting as a greeter, guide, consultant, flyer distributor, and simple window display to reach potential consumer groups. "Launching AI-integrated robotic dolls will have a revolutionary impact on the upgrade of the adult product industry," Lin Degang confirmed. Apart from not being able to "reproduce," "Yuanbao" (the robot) can already meet most of the emotional needs humans have, and she will come infinitely close to real humans. In recent years, combining physical dolls with artificial intelligence seems to have become an industry consensus. Other brand manufacturers are also following Chunshuitang's lead in AI R&D. In May 2023, TiAiSi (EXDOLL) showcased their humanoid robot at the China Robot Summit. The female robot with silver-gray hair had realistic micro-expressions and skin texture close to that of real humans. She could perform voice broadcasts but could not yet have voice conversations, and they were advancing the integration of ChatGPT and Wenxin Yiyan large models at the time. Lin Degang stated: "Creating AI companion robots does not conflict with finding real human partners; it is not a substitute. Instead, it is a phased solution before people find real partners." 04 Available Soon "In March to April 2024, our first batch of humanoid companion robots integrated with AI large models will be officially sold, priced between 9,999 to 15,000 yuan." Lin Degang said. "The second version for home use will be launched in the third quarter of 2024, with movable waists and upper limbs, priced close to 50,000 yuan." Additionally, male-shaped robotic dolls will also be launched in the third to fourth quarters, bringing AI boyfriends. It is reported that Chunshuitang’s humanoid robots are divided into two categories: commercial and household. Lin Degang believes that after the product is launched, the domestic demand for it will be about 50,000 units, with household models accounting for 80% of the sales. Moreover, in his plan, Chunshuitang’s robotic dolls' overseas business will account for a quarter of the total. "We already set up a warehouse in the U.S. in October 2023; Europe and Japan will be our second stop, and overseas prices will be about 1.5 times higher than domestic prices." There are also non-physical demand purchases. Lin Degang said that in the future, they will also cover the elderly and children markets. Humanoid robots can monitor health and safety for the elderly and trigger alarms in emergencies, while providing companionship and educational functions for children.