A couple of weeks ago Bas wrote about AI music stars. Discussions surrounding virtual stars focus mainly – what’s in a name – on the virtual. But what if they had an actual footing in the real world?
Step in Boston Dynamics. If you hadn’t heard of them yet, you’ll probably have seen this video over the past holiday period:
It’s great, it’s catchy, it’s eerie, it’s a feat of engineering.
Recently, Boston Dynamics switched ownership for the third time in the last 7 years. Hyundai Motor Group, a South Korean company, has acquired an 80% stake in the company from it’s previous owner SoftBank, who will keep the remaining 20% stake. Techcrunch’s Brian Heater summed up the need for the ownership switches succintly:
“Each owner served its function for the company’s bottom line — Google offered resources for exploration, SoftBank compelled it to productize and Hyundai will deliver the sort of engineering and manufacturing know-how required to scale up its products.”
The whole idea, it seems, is to be able to utilise Hyundai’s robotic production lines to step up the commercial path to profitability for these types of robots. Currently, Spot costs around $75,000. Of course, Spot looks cool on YouTube videos but it’s not really much more than a walking camera. With Hyundai, development could move much faster than before. And the question arises: what could robots do that will help propel them into the mainstream?
Back in 2019, a couple of South Korean students landed a little bit of internet fame with a set of robots they developed that mimicked well-known dances by members of BTS.
There isn’t a lot in the world right now that has more pop-cultural clout than BTS and K-Pop in general is in a strong moment. And BTS has been experimenting with creating experiences that allow their fans to experience something virtual in an offline real-life environment. Their pop-up showcase launched in Seoul last November was, according to Big Hit Entertainment, a preview of the online store, which is available in the Weverse app (both the pop-up showcase and the online store are available until 24 January if you’re keen). The South Korean connection makes a collaboration between Hyundai, Boston Dynamics and a K-Pop band like BTS not unimaginable. What would it look like?
- Avatar-like robots that can act like BTS band members, or perhaps even start their own idol-type group.
- It could be as simple as making the robots a part of the band, added in first instance as a kind of dance crew.
- More interesting perhaps than matching the robots to a real-life group such as BTS is to match them to a mixed real-life & virtual idol group such as Aespa. In that case, the robots can truly become an extension of the virtual domain in the real world.
None of this will probably happen soon, but it does suddenly feel a lot closer. Virtual and real-life actors continue to mingle as fans experience music as much online as offline. Adding robots into that mix could be a way to bridge worlds. Of course, it can be a creepy experience. Where BTS can hardly do anything wrong, both offline and online, Aespa is much more divisive. Robots look cute when they’re doing some rock ‘n roll dances, but different responses will be evoked if we interact with them directly and ascribe them more anthropomorphic qualities.