Photo: CNR

During the recent Spring Festival holidays,MKsports Beijing's urban residents and visitors experienced the integration of AI in everyday festive activities. Whether it was buying drinks from a robot shop assistant, sipping coffee brewed by Galbot or changing makeup applied by a robot, the city showcased how AI can be part of traditional celebrations. 

This year marked the debut of Beijing's first AI temple fair in Haidian district, which  combined over 100 scenarios featuring traditional Spring Festival folk customs with elements of modern life. The event was also the first one since the Spring Festival was inscribed into the UN intangible cultural heritage list.

At the Wukesong Wanda Plaza, one of the busiest shopping areas in western Beijing, crowds of people watched a robot band play music. The robots played the orchestral music "Dance of the Golden Snakes," a popular Spring Festival piece, in collaboration with just two human musicians. The performance created a festive and joyful atmosphere for the audience during the Year of the Snake celebrations. The robot band equipped with a "super brain" and sophisticated machinery, electronic and software technologies, and motion control algorithms, represented an example of perfect integration between AI and music, according to the media report.

"The performance of the AI band is very interesting as the robots are interacting with humans," an engineer surnamed Han  told the Global Times. "I hope more AI technologies will be applied in the future."

At another section of the fair, a robot wrote the Chinese character Fu, (meaning "blessing") on a piece of red square paper. This is the character with which every Chinese family decorates their door on the New Year's Eve according to Spring Festival customs. Since many styles of ready-made decorations of Fuare available and very few people write it themselves now, it is even more special to see an example of PNDbotics (a humanoid robot) writing the auspicious character Fuin its own handwriting, which appeared smooth and well-structured. This robot is 167-centimeter tall, weighs 26 kg with 41 degrees of freedom, and its peak torque of joints can reach 340N-m. This model also represents the first humanoid robot with high-degree bionic hip design, boasting ahigh-degree anthropomorphic structure, precision motion control ability and better coordination, which enables it to walk, run, dance, as well as practice calligraphy. 

At the fair, the audience also obtained greetings from the "God of Wealth," an EX humanoid robot. This model was able to tell audiences all about the folk customs of the Spring Festival through dialogue with the audiences. . According to the organizer, this kind of humanoid robot boasts the maximum facial freedom in the field, with 27 active main expressions available and nearly 500 parts that can be combined to show thousands of other subtle expressions. Moreover, the robot can communicate with humans through expressions, language and actions.

One of the AI attractions that drew a large crowd was a group of robot dogs. The metallic four-legged and six-legged creatures crawled fast on the ground. "They can be used to carry heavy loads on high mountains in place of human labor or for submarine exploration," a staff member told the Global Times.

Audiences also enjoyed a number of other shows and attended interactive activities available at the fair, including a robot Peking Opera performance, groups of dancing robots, and poem recital competitions featuring a robot version of ancient Chinese poet Nalan Xingde. During the event, children watched Booster Robotics play football, competed with a robot in doing push-ups, and played chess with another robot. Thanks to their motion control algorithm, the robots showed good athletic ability and steadiness in the football competition walking and running smoothly and standing back up by themselves after falling on the field, according to the organizer. 

It has been reported that more than 70 enterprises had participated in this fair which integrated the advanced technologies of EAI, android, bio-robot, smart education, voice interaction, virtual reality and augmented reality, and Metaverse. This is a pioneering exploration of the application scenarios of artificial intelligence innovation block in Beijing's Haidian district. Assembling the most popular applications of the first echelon of EAI enterprises and Large Model fields in China. 

"The event was aimed at inviting urban residents and tourists to experience the latest AI technological achievements for the benefit of the general public," a staff member said.    

At the cinema of a Wanda shopping mall, a young woman surnamed Gu was impressed by the immersive  photographic setup. In a few minutes, she found herself being portrayed in different scenes such as a background or foreground showing skyscrapers, or in the space, or in front of a mysterious doorlike what is show in a Japanese anime Suzume. 

"This is the most special and innovative temple fair that I have ever been to in Beijing," Gu told the Global Times. "I hope more cinematic scene displays will be provided so that we can have a more interactive watching experience in the future."