I Found A Planet

Chen Jin began his explanation of the Bang Bang robot beside him. “The first item is the ‘Family Doctor’ function. Every Bang Bang robot is equivalent to a family doctor. We’ve co-developed this function with the strongest company in the country, Baidu. By using their medical data system, the robot can measure the user’s blood pressure, body temperature, observe their complexion, and analyze the user’s medical test reports. With the above abilities, it can detect up to 1,153 types of common illnesses, such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, digestive issues, gynecological diseases, and more. In addition, it can detect all these diseases no matter if they are in the early, intermediate, or late stage. Its accuracy rate is over 85%. However, for its role as a family doctor, its main duty is not to detect diseases, but to prevent such diseases. Isn’t there a saying that goes, ‘prevention is better than cure?’ If one maintains good lifestyle habits, pays attention to their daily diet and health status, exercises regularly, and takes care to keep themselves warm in cold weather, more than 90% of diseases can be prevented. The Bang Bang robot prevents rather than cures. It can give different reminders to different people according to their health status. For example, it can inform the user of the consequences resulting from his bad habits and diet. Through this, it can guide and nurture everyone towards a healthy lifestyle. It will fight to eliminate more than 90% of diseases before they even have a chance to emerge.”

Chen Jin smiled. “This is the real significance of the family doctor function in the Bang Bang robot. It will let everyone understand that they can live healthily until they are 90 or even 100 years old as long as they follow the guidance and reminders of Bang Bang. In this process, they would also save a lot of money that would have gone into medical treatments. This is a fundamental principle that would get to the root of the diseases.”

He Li clapped and said, “This function is very good! I want to undergo a test immediately so that Bang Bang can check what kind of problems I have!”

Chen Gang nodded. “Nowadays, many people are criticizing the widespread issues in the medical industry. They say it’s difficult and expensive to get a check-up, and then there are the quacks, the fake hospitals, medications, and supplements. Many have fallen into these traps! Troubling medical incidents occur frequently. The root problem lies in our medical system. It is not advanced and it’s too expensive. Of course, our lifestyles are also an issue. Regardless of the reforms that have been carried out, the situation with the medical industry will continue to exacerbate. Your Bang Bang robot can indeed solve the problems by addressing root issues! It can measure blood pressure and body temperature in addition to observing the user’s complexion and reading his medical test reports. By drawing on the big data system from Baidu, its judgment will absolutely be more accurate than the quack. This would help the user save on consultation fees. Moreover, since the Bang Bang robot is in the home of the patient, it can supervise the patient’s intake of medicine and speed up their recovery process!”

Chen Gang gave a very good review for the family doctor function! He believed that well-to-do families would buy it for sure! “Indeed, it’s disease prevention mechanism is great for healthy families as it silently reduces the incident rates of diseases. It can also detect diseases in their early stages so the patient can seek treatment early. Although one has to spend some money on the medical tests, if they look at the bigger picture, they still would have saved a huge amount of money! I think that simply based on this function, the Bang Bang robot should be sold for $20,000. Its sales quantity would not be less 20 million units.” By buying this robot, the potential savings would be in the thousands, millions, or even the user’s life!

Chen Jin continued, “The second item is the ‘Answers For All’ household function. This function is similar to ‘A Million Whys’ in the Little Star learning machine. But, the function will be used in a home environment. Hence, it is required to be able to answer a greater variety of questions. For example, a mother can ask for the instructions on making a particular dish, or the father can ask what is the most glorious history of a particular soccer team. A child can ask for the plot of a particular anime. Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of questions asked. But, it’s impossible for Bang Bang to be able to answer every single question. I’m afraid that there aren’t any records in the database for some really obscure questions. So, for now, Bang Bang is only able to answer at least 80% of the questions. We will announce the questions that have no proper answer to the public, and in exchange, the people who provide answers will get a prize. Let’s say that there are 10 million challenging questions, and the prize for answering each question ranges from $10 to $100. We would spend about a few hundred million and the Bang Bang robot would be able to answer at least 99% of all questions. With such a learned robot at home, every family would become a learned family in the future.”

Chen Gang and He Li looked at each other and nodded. This function was quite good. Chen Gang said, “The ‘Answers For All’ function is not as stunning as the first function. It’s equivalent to a more powerful version of the smart speaker, but it’s still pretty good.”

“Yes.” Chen Jin said helplessly, “Dad, your eyes don’t miss anything. This function can only be considered as a selling point, it’s not so exceptional to be a game-changing function. Besides the ‘smart speaker,’ Wa-wah 2.0 can also be fitted with the ‘Answer for All’ function after an upgrade.”

“Son, that’s not accurate.” He Li waved her hand. “If I was presented with the smart speaker, the Wa-wah robot, and the Bang Bang robot, I would definitely choose to ask Bang Bang. Look at how big and cute it is. It looks like a teacher. Who else would I ask if not Bang Bang?”

“Yes, yes.” Chen Gang agreed, “Actually for many problems, the one that we unconsciously want to pose our question to is a human, not a robot. The Wa-wah robot was too short and small, one has to lower his head to see it properly. Moreover, its smart speaker cannot be moved. From this point of view, the Bang Bang robot is the most suitable carrier for the intelligent answering technology as it can help to establish more convenient and effective communication.”

Chen Jin nodded. “A product manager from my company also said the same thing; that the best communication is established between a human and another ‘human.'”

Then, there was one last “killer” function left. What was this function? Chen Jin said, “The final function is a ‘Family Protection’ function.”

Chen Gang frowned. “Isn’t this the same as the function in the Wa-wah robot?”

“This is different. The ‘family caretaker’ function in Wa-wah 2.0 can only monitor, send reminders, and call for help. It can’t interfere in the situation. But the Bang Bang robot can interfere in time to prevent tragedies from happening. For example, if an elderly at home is experiencing cardiovascular complications, Bang Bang robot can feed them their medications and perform emergency CPR. When there’s a fire, Bang Bang can grab a child who is less than 40 kilograms and escape. When a gangster breaks in to commit assault, it will start the self-protection mechanism. It will eject gas irritants from its nose and stop the gangsters from committing a crime. If a situation of utmost emergency has cropped up and the parent is not at home, he or she could activate the ‘Ultimate Control’ mode to remotely operate the Bang Bang robot to execute out actions that include carrying, colliding, or even more destructive actions to deal with the emergency. The maximum load that Bang Bang robot can carry would increase by 50% under this mode. It would be able to carry an object up to 30 kilograms. But, in order to activate the ‘Ultimate Control’ mode, the user has to apply for permission and agree to the terms of use. Only after getting the approval from Xing Hai Technologies’ remote monitoring staff can they activate this mode. The actions taken hereafter would be recorded in its entirety and kept as evidence under the guarantee that it would not be used for illegal activities. Our company would not be taking on further legal responsibilities after the emergency has ended. We’ve termed these functions in Bang Bang robot as ‘Ultimate Protection.’ Its capabilities are much greater than Wa-wah 2.0”

Ultimate Protection? Chen Gang mouthed the words again. The “Ultimate Control Mode” depicted by Chen Jin left a deep impression on him. He inquired, “You mean that when the user starts the ‘Ultimate Control Mode,’ he can operate the robot just like how he would do so in a game and do whatever he wants to do? Let’s say that the scene of a wife having an affair with another man was captured by a Bang Bang robot. Can the husband apply for ‘Ultimate Control,’ get a knife from the kitchen and kill the adulterer?”

Chen Jin nodded. “Theoretically, that is possible. But our remote monitoring staff will not give approval. Also, they will call the police to prevent the loss of lives. In addition, even for approved actions carried out under the ‘Ultimate Control’ mode, there are limits too. For example, the robot can pull down a child who is playing on the windowsill but it cannot hit the child even though the parent is controlling the robot. Our staff will end the ‘Ultimate Control.’ When necessary, our remote monitoring staff can also interfere to prevent parents from misusing the function. Of course, this function will cause a lot of debate. Even if it was used to stop gangsters from committing violent crimes, they may instead cause the criminal to act crazily and result in more damage. If this is not allowed from a governing and ethical point of view, both functions will be axed. The capabilities of a robot are limited and every family situation has its own complications. The Ultimate Protection function may never truly be actualized.”

Chen Gang nodded. “It’s better to ax it. ‘Even an honest and upright official will have difficulty resolving a family dispute.’ Dealing with gangsters and criminals are the duties of the police. If a problem appeared in the ‘Ultimate Control’ mode and a loss of life could not be prevented, your company would be faced with a huge responsibility. Most of the time, good intentions do not translate into good results.”

“This… These two functions are so useful, it’s a pity to just ax them!” He Li found it hard to understand. She did not see any major problems with the two functions. Why should they be axed?

After removing these two functions, the “Ultimate” in “Ultimate Protection” would be irrelevant. The functions would also perform slightly better than their equivalents in Wa-wah 2.0. Hence, the third function, “Ultimate Protection,” could only be an ordinary selling point. Even so, the Bang Bang robot that focused on areas “above ground” was still a futuristic product that would cause a huge sensation. Tens of millions of the robot would be sold in an instant. In He Li’s words, “I know why it’s called ‘Bang Bang.’ This robot really is too awesome!”

Chen Gang asked with great interest, “Son, what’s the estimated cost of the robot’s hardware? What’s the selling price of one unit?”

“This is a trade secret. You’ll know everything during the product launch.” Chen Jin gave a mysterious smile

Chen Gang glared at him. The little twerp was keeping him in suspense.