Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 388 Hurricane L5 Sweeps the Nation
Big T's business philosophy is to cheat and deceive whenever possible.

This is an instinct passed down through their entire family, starting with Fred.

This is true even before an agreement is signed, and even after an agreement is signed, they will still try to take advantage of the situation and not abide by the agreement.

The most outrageous thing is that they were able to breach the agreements they signed with the federal government.

In the 70s, Fred's company managed a large number of federally subsidized properties that were required to comply with the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited housing discrimination based on race, color, or other criteria.

In fact, they have always engaged in racial discrimination, such as rejecting applications from Black tenants, using codes to label applicants by race, telling white test takers that there are vacancies while rejecting or directing Black test takers to buildings with a higher percentage of racial groups, etc.

Later, a federal investigation was launched, and the two parties eventually reached a settlement, signing an agreement that such behavior would not occur again in the future. In reality, such behavior has always existed.

From Fred to Big T, they've always been like this, never changing. They'll take advantage whenever they can, and when they can't, they'll sign an agreement. In the process of executing the agreement, they'll try to gain as much advantage as possible, as if not gaining an advantage would be a loss.

From this perspective, the T family seems more like Indian than German.

“Mr. President, you are wise!” Musk said, then added, “But my main focus going forward will be on helping America’s space program become great again, so…”

He didn't finish his sentence.

I'm about to become the director of NASA, and you're arranging for me to negotiate with China, and to run to Beijing and Shanghai every few days. Isn't that a bit inappropriate?
This is also a reminder to Big T: you can't forget the NASA director you promised to arrange for me!
Big T suddenly realized: "That makes sense, let's do it this way."

He looked around, and John Morgan Sr. raised his hand and said, "Mr. President, as a member of the Morgan family, I am willing to take on this responsibility! I will fight for you, Mr. President!"

John Morgan rose and gave a knightly salute, eliciting laughter and cheers from the crowd, instantly dispelling the previous tense atmosphere.

Big T said loudly, "Great! Good old buddy, then it's you. After I take office, I will sign a presidential decree appointing you as the special advisor for East Asia negotiations."

As we all know, Big T's decision depends on who he talks to last.

John Morgan Sr. smiled as he watched the President nod in acknowledgment before returning to his seat.

"Do your best and obey destiny."

In response to Song Nanping's question, Lin Ran replied.

Song Nanping was highly skeptical about whether America would be willing to make such a deal.

After all, the fall of the chip industry has been a long process. Starting in 2016, it was promoted by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, proven by Silicon Valley, and reached a consensus in Washington. The final implementation was in 2023.

We finally came up with a solution, and now you want to reverse such a hard-won strategy? Even if the cake is tempting enough, Song Nanping still thinks it's too difficult.

This is tantamount to going against the inertia of the entire American bureaucratic system.

However, he also had to admit that the current president was the one most likely to reach an agreement; if the T president couldn't get one, it would be even less likely for any other president.

"I don't know if it will work out, but I do know that Big T is the president most likely to make a deal with us, so let's give it a try."

Furthermore, acquiring semiconductor technology from Japan is secondary; the most important thing is to destroy the 4V economy.

If America's financial capital can profit from short selling, why can't our financial capital?
This piece of the pie, Wall Street can touch it, and so can we!

Immediately, Lin Ran grinned and said, "America doesn't yet have a good enough understanding of the difficulties of landing at the lunar south pole."

Once Musk takes over NASA, he'll see after a few failures.

How sincere it is that we are willing to exchange our Arctic landing technology for it.

And once the electromagnetic orbit and the new manned spacecraft are successfully put into operation this year, and the regular round-trip passage between the Earth and the Moon is opened, the stimulus to America will be even greater.

They need to fully realize that they are getting a good deal, then they will naturally push for the deal.

We are merely planting a seed now; the seed will grow into a towering tree in due time.

Furthermore, the technology they possess is depreciating in value; it will only become less and less valuable, and time is not on their side.

January 1, 2025, the first day of the new year, saw a flurry of announcements.

First, the official media's Weibo account stated, "On January 1, 2025, Beijing officially released the 'Interim Provisions on the Management of Autonomous Vehicles,' providing legal protection for the smooth implementation of full-domain L5 autonomous driving technology."

This regulation will lay the foundation for the safe operation and standardized management of autonomous vehicles, and provide strong legal support for future intelligent mobility.

Chinese netizens felt like it had finally arrived.

The moment L5 appeared, everyone knew that laws and regulations would definitely follow suit; China would never allow its laws and regulations to lag behind advanced technology.

China's attitude toward new technologies is completely different from that of Europe. Europe has always focused on regulation of artificial intelligence, with various forms of regulation, even if there is no artificial intelligence at all.

In April 2021, the European Commission officially released the draft of the Artificial Intelligence Act. The most important provision is that the EU will impose huge fines on AI systems that do not meet the requirements, up to 6% of their global annual revenue.

The global annual revenue figure is clearly tailor-made for America and China's tech giants.

The official announcement was released at 9:00 AM, while HarmonyOS's announcement was released at 10:00 AM.
HarmonyOS official announcement

On January 1, 2025, ShaNiu will officially launch! We will usher in a new era of autonomous driving!
Today, HarmonyOS officially launched the trial operation of L5 autonomous driving vehicles, initially covering 10 cities, and enabling one-click reservations via WeChat mini-program, allowing users to experience future travel anytime, anywhere.

Service cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Tianjin. The number of autonomous vehicles deployed in each city varies, but it is enough to allow you to enjoy the L5 driving experience across the entire region.

Whether on bustling city streets or quiet suburban roads, HarmonyOS will provide you with a safe, intelligent, and worry-free travel experience.

It will officially start on January 1, 2025. During the trial operation, the number of vehicles is limited, so everyone is welcome to make an appointment to experience it!
Simply open WeChat, search for the HarmonyOS Mobility mini-program, enter your destination, and you can quickly book an L5-level autonomous vehicle to reach your destination.

During the trial operation, we will closely monitor the experience of every user and make timely optimizations to ensure that travel is more intelligent and convenient.

For any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact us directly through the mini-program!
The future is here; travel will no longer be exclusive to humans. Let's explore the future world together, with HarmonyOS intelligent mobility, and enjoy the smartest travel experience!

The rules are the starting gun, and HarmonyOS is the first to start running.

"???"

"No, why are you using Didi if you're not going to the Venerable Realm?"

"Ten cities? This is discrimination against third- and fourth-tier cities! We strongly condemn this!"

"I made an appointment as soon as I saw it, but it said I had to wait fifty minutes?"

The comments section exploded online, with over 100,000 messages appearing in just five minutes.

People started making reservations via WeChat mini-program.

Netizens were surprised to discover that the reservation page was indeed named "Silly Girl, Silly Girl at Your Service".

"Could you please change your name? Hua Zi, I won't tease you anymore now that you've quoted from the entire Classic of Mountains and Seas."

"This name is really useless except for childhood nostalgia."

Then a lot of netizens went to the Douyin account of the actor who played Lu Xiaotian and told him: Silly girl is back!

Many automotive media bloggers have started using special methods to make reservations.

Major automotive media personalities typically have teams, and some are even shareholders of their own media companies, enabling them to mobilize an entire team.

"Hello everyone, because it is the world's first, note that it is the world's first, L5 autonomous driving has been launched. In the past, we have had a series of driverless taxis such as Carrot Express and Pony.ai running on the road."

But they are all L4, and L4 is a restricted area, only able to run in fixed areas. Now that we have suddenly reached L5, I am really, really looking forward to it.

When HarmonyOS's announcement came out at 10 a.m., my WeChat exploded. All my company groups, peer groups, fan groups, and family groups were discussing this, talking about which stocks to buy on the first day of the new year after New Year's Day, which companies would be hyped up, and which related companies were involved.

Hey, what's up? My phone's ringing again. It's 10:23 AM Beijing time. My financial advisor at Huatai Securities has sent me a message: "Brother Zhen, these are the companies that our company's experts have identified as beneficiaries of this wave of L5 autonomous driving. You can take a look."

Look at them, the business they run, the efficiency they have, the actions they take—no wonder they can make money.

Okay, back to the main point. As soon as I saw it, I immediately opened the mini-program to make an appointment, only to find that I would have to wait at least 90 minutes at my current location, and even then, it might not be my turn.

So I came up with a dirty trick: I asked my colleagues, "Isn't today a day off? We all live in different parts of Beijing, which means we'll all be making appointments with Sha Niu in different parts of Beijing. Whichever location has the shortest time, we'll head over there."

Wasn't that clever?

Chen Zhen, a well-known car reviewer in the automotive industry, who always has fools eager to refute his claims whenever public opinion turns against him, used his iPhone's front-facing camera to show his face, which was somewhat deformed from the weight loss due to the ketogenic diet, and spoke eloquently to countless viewers.

The number of viewers in the live stream quickly exceeded 100,000, making it the live stream with the highest viewership of Chen Zhen's career.

This made him more proactive and more eager to perform.

For self-media bloggers, data is the most direct positive incentive. When the data is good, they feel refreshed and energetic, without headaches or leg pains.

The same applies to authors on a certain platform; monthly tickets, subscriptions, and rewards can unleash 200% of their fighting power.

"I'm going to drive my Zunjie out now. Didn't Zunjie have a launch event two months ago? I ordered one. Now I want to ask, when will the L5 be available on Zunjie?"

Surely your top-of-the-line car can't be without your top-of-the-line technology, right?

Of course, if the distribution rights for L5 are in the hands of Crimson or Burning God, then disregard what I said.

We're heading to Yizhuang now. My colleague there told me that he only has a 50-minute wait, which is the shortest wait I've seen in our colleague group chat.

Xiaomi's car factory is located in Yizhuang. Do you think this was intentional?

This is just my personal speculation and doesn't represent the true thoughts of Huawei and Crimson. I don't think it's that serious; it's just a joke.

Chen Zhen chatted with his viewers in the live stream while driving.

"I'm curious, why don't people like the name 'Silly Girl'? It's a high-end technology with a very simple and unpretentious name, isn't that a big contrast? Weren't the names Microsoft Xiaoice, Apple, and Xiaopeng all like that before?"
Actually, this is a common naming rule. It uses a simple and unpretentious name to create a contrast for users. Originally, my technology might be rated 10 points, and then I named it Xiaopeng, so your expectation is 6 points. In the end, you feel that it is 10 points, and you will feel like you are rated 12 points.

This is a form of expectation management.

Like the silly girl, when I was watching the live stream of the burning god and Musk, I was stunned. This silly girl performed better than all the self-driving cars. Is she silly?
Not to mention that "Silly Girl" also has a nostalgic appeal in the country, as it was the name of an artificial intelligence in a TV series many years ago.

Isn't this great?
Of course, if the final product is released, I still hope the car won't be called "Silly Girl," and I also believe that HarmonyOS wouldn't be that irrational.

As for the concern that this name might make it difficult to sell in overseas markets, I think everyone shouldn't worry too much.

Regardless of what it's called, I feel that our autonomous driving technology will have a hard time going global.

The car is fine, but Level 5 autonomous driving is essentially handing your life over to a company, especially a Chinese company. Let alone European and American countries, even some countries that are on good terms with us would probably find this hard to accept.

We need to face reality: for a long time to come, Level 5 autonomous driving technology will only be available in China and will not be sold overseas.

"Lin Ran? They asked me if it would be good if the car were named Lin Ran or Ran, like foreign brands that use the founder's name?"

Well, I'd definitely buy it. The "Burning" theme is very dynamic and youthful, but I'm not sure if the market will buy it. It shouldn't be a big problem, since the reputation, achievements, and results of "Burning" are beyond question.

Of course, I believe HarmonyOS wouldn't do that. If they wanted to persuade Burning God to be a spokesperson of this level and give you the name directly, what a price they would have to pay.

I don't think even the God of Burning would agree to several hundred million.

HarmonyOS won't do that, nor can it afford that price.

Thirty minutes later, Chen Zhen arrived in Yizhuang and waited for about twenty more minutes.

"Brother Zhen, what I'm thinking is that we shouldn't stand here, let's stand a little further back," said Xiao Wang, an employee who lives in Yizhuang.

Chen Zhen looked puzzled. "Why? Isn't this place marked on the map in the mini-program?"

Xiao Wang explained, "Didn't we have our faces recorded when we registered?" Chen Zhen thought for a moment and said, "That's right. I thought it was a bit strange at the time. Why would a ride-hailing app record your face?"
I think we need to raise the barrier to entry for users to avoid too many people using ride-hailing services, which is why we specifically added a facial recognition process.

Xiao Wang nodded and said, "I suspect that the face recording is for facial recognition."

This means that the ride-hailing service doesn't rely solely on location to find you. Upon arrival at the destination, it will definitely have a camera that recognizes faces in the surrounding area. If it detects the face of the person who booked the ride, it will then drive towards the person's location.

Chen Zhen slapped his thigh: "Holy crap! That makes sense!"
Xiao Wang, if your guess is true, then you've done another great service; we were the first to discover it!

That's how it is in the workplace. If you can think of things that others can't, you can often leave a good impression on your superiors. And by relying on personal relationships, you can stand out among your peers.

Personal ability and personal relationships are both indispensable; the former reflects IQ and the latter reflects EQ.

"No, Brother Zhen, if my guess is right, when we took the taxi, we didn't ask you whether you wanted to use the trunk. I guess it should make its own judgment."

If the camera sees that you have luggage, it will open the trunk after the car comes to a complete stop; if you don't, it won't.

"I suspect there might be a rule for deciding whether or not to open the trunk!" Xiao Wang said, as if suddenly realizing something.

Chen Zhen quickly said, "Can you go home now and get a suitcase? Is that enough time?"

Xiao Wang nodded: "There's enough time!" After saying that, he took off running.

Three minutes later, Xiao Wang returned to the roadside. They waited for about five more minutes, and Chen Zhen had already pointed the camera at the silly girl, instead of at himself.
"Look, everyone, it has arrived at its destination."

"Holy crap, Xiao Wang's guess was right! Unlike other driverless taxis that just stay at the reserved location, it actively seeks out passengers."

Look! It's driving right towards us! Silly girl isn't silly at all; compared to other driverless taxis, her reaction is a bit too clever.

After the car came to a complete stop, the trunk opened automatically. Xiao Wang and Chen Zhen exchanged a glance and then pumped their fists: "Just as expected! When they designed it, they used human thinking, not rules and restrictions!"

After putting the suitcase in the trunk, and once Chen Zhen, Xiao Wang, and two other colleagues were seated in the car, a colleague held up his phone for him.

Chen Zhen, sitting in the driver's seat, said:
"Silly Girl's intelligence level still exceeded my expectations. Such details were not seen in the live broadcast of Burning God."

We often say that the devil is in the details, and in this case, it has become almost indistinguishable from a human driver.

It's truly incredible that the car parked at the designated location, searched for passengers, briefly started moving and then came to a complete stop, and even proactively opened its trunk upon seeing the luggage.

In finding passengers, Silly Girl does a better job than human drivers, since human drivers have to call you, while it only needs a camera to identify passengers.

This is the first time I've ever ridden in a car without a steering wheel, dashboard, brakes, or accelerator. This time, the future has truly arrived.

Then there's a map displayed on the HUD, making it feel like the HUD is functioning as a dashboard.

There's an emergency stop button on its right. Come on, Xiao Li, give me your phone so I can show it to our viewers. It's here.

Unless it's an emergency, don't press this button. Pressing it once will cost you 50,000. Just a heads-up.

Then there's the riding experience, which is excellent. The seats are almost like an ideal sofa. Thanks to the fact that there's no need for a driver's seat and no engine or transmission, the overall sense of space is also very good.

An absolutely luxurious car experience.

The price was naturally that of a luxury car. This time, we took the longest taxi, which took us from Yizhuang all the way through the inner ring road to Changping.

The price is over 600 yuan, which is already the price of Didi's luxury car, more than twice as expensive as Didi's premium car.

Personally, I think there's no difference in the experience. The reason for this pricing is that they anticipated it would be very popular, so it seems like the price was deliberately set to raise the barrier to entry.

If it were up to me, I would set the price higher, because there are simply too few available. Even at this price, the wait is often at least half an hour, making it more suitable for media reviews or tech enthusiasts to experience.

The car drove quietly on the streets of Yanjing:

"The sound insulation is very good; you can hardly hear any noise from outside the car."

The overall vehicle condition will then be displayed on the HUD screen, and its handling of complex road conditions is rather aggressive.

It wasn't as aggressive as I drive, but it was more aggressive than the average driver, and the safety margin it provided, in my observation, was shorter than all other autonomous driving systems.

The entire experience lasted two hours, during which the number of viewers in Chen Zhen's live stream climbed from 100,000 to over 500,000 at its peak, according to the backend data.

It's important to know that Chen Zhen isn't the only one doing this kind of review; top car reviewers on Douyin, Weibo, and Bilibili are also doing reviews.

He wasn't the only one who came up with this method; other big bloggers could think of it too. After thinking of it, they all got on the L5 autonomous driving system, some waiting for as long as an hour and a half.

Without exception, car reviewers all praised it highly, believing that this autonomous driving system has indeed performed significantly better than other autonomous driving systems, and that there is no fundamental difference between it and a human driver in terms of driving quality.

After getting off the train in Changping, Chen Zhen smiled wryly:
"It seems we'll have to take another taxi now, and everyone will go home."

I'll summarize here.

First of all, this can't really be considered a test; it's more like an evaluation, purely subjective and not objective at all. Also, we absolutely didn't receive any money, which is quite abrupt. Secondly, it's not worth it for them to spend money to buy our positive reviews for such a unique product.

Therefore, it can guarantee a relatively objective view.

Throughout the entire journey, it demonstrated excellent performance. The distance was quite long, from Yizhuang to Changping, which is over 60 kilometers and took almost two hours. It also experienced various complex road conditions.

Unlike the driverless taxis we've experienced in the past, it can only operate in specific areas with good, wide lanes and cannot cross areas.

It completed the task smoothly throughout the process, demonstrating superior capabilities in various complex road conditions, such as going up and down overpasses, changing lanes on auxiliary roads, and starting at intersections. This is something that previous autonomous driving systems could not do.

I believe it is L5.

Without a doubt, it will be L5. As I have said before, L5 will be the first to appear in China.

Then, what everyone is concerned about is which new forces will be affected; every single one will be impacted.

Tesla, for example, should it still sell with Full Self-Driving (FSD)? Your handling is amazing, but your interior is like a bare shell. People don't need the handling, so how can you sell it?
And then there's XPeng. XPeng's main focus is on intelligent driving. No matter how advanced your autonomous driving is, how can it compete with HarmonyOS L5's autonomous driving? What's even more critical is that Volkswagen pays XPeng over a billion yuan in technology licensing fees every year. Can they still make that money in the face of L5?

What about NIO's global model? Should it be launched or not? Li Auto, Moment, Bosch, Pony.ai, and other autonomous driving service providers are all facing difficulties.

BYD and Xiaomi are slightly better, but the improvement is limited.

An even more pressing question is: with L5 (Level 5) technology, will people still need a car? Will they still need their own car?

This is the most important issue; if we don't think it through, the entire industry could disappear.

Alright, that's the end of today's live stream. The future is really here. I'm just taking it one day at a time. Maybe tomorrow the car review industry won't exist anymore, and we might have to beg for food in the cyber world.

I will still need to rely on everyone a lot. Thank you.

Chen Zhen clasped his hands in a fist salute, and the video feed disappeared.

In addition to the live stream, a trend of filming and following the silly girl swept across Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu that day.

"Didn't you guys notice that all these silly girls' license plates start with 'R'? Like '京R', '沪R', '粤R'?"

"Doesn't 'R' mean 'Robot'? There was no need for 'R' in the previous license plate ranking system."

"Silly Girl · Beijing R · 00001, it really does have a bit of a cyberpunk world feel to it."

Then some busybodies tallied the number of idiots deployed under HarmonyOS in various cities across the country:
"Fifty 'Silly Girls' each in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen; thirty each in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, and Chengdu; and twenty each in Nanjing, Wuhan, and Tianjin. What does this mean? It means that HarmonyOS has already divided cities into different tiers."

The first three are super-first-tier cities, the middle four are first-tier cities, and the last three are new first-tier cities.

"No, why do Chongqing and Chengdu qualify as first-tier cities? Aren't they also emerging first-tier cities?"

"Why isn't Guangzhou a top-tier city? Is Ran Shen, a local of Guangzhou, being so disrespectful?"

The regional war has begun!
At 9 p.m. that evening, Lin Ran started a live stream on his personal Douyin and Bilibili accounts simultaneously.

After discovering this, Douyin (TikTok's Chinese version) actively promoted his content.

For Chinese netizens, this was a wonderful surprise.

"Let's talk about something. Today is the first day of 2025. I was thinking that L5 didn't hold any press conference, and Crimson didn't hold any press conference either. Then there were all sorts of opinions."

Many people worry about losing their jobs. For example, ride-hailing drivers worry that the technology has matured and they might lose their jobs.

Some food delivery riders also have similar concerns, since a large part of their job involves driving.

Even delivery drivers are worried that the system could become fully automated in the future.

Ride-hailing, food delivery, and express delivery are three large employment reservoirs, and everyone is somewhat worried about them.

And I also wanted to use this method to talk directly with everyone.

Lin Ran was in his study, with ultra-high-definition photos of Saturn V, Burning One, and Burning One modified hanging behind him.

The number of viewers in the live stream quickly exceeded one million, and the barrage of comments was so fast that a normal person couldn't keep up. Fortunately, Lin Ran was not a normal person.

"Let's address these questions one by one. When will L5 be implemented? I don't know. It probably won't be implemented this year. As for how it will be implemented, we need to consider the overall picture."

Because there are many options, I believe that an assessment is needed in the process.

One option, which is what everyone is worried about, is to launch a ride-hailing platform based on L5 autonomous driving, thereby increasing the cost of car ownership for residents and reducing the cost of large vehicles, and popularizing driverless taxis nationwide.

This would lead to job losses for Didi drivers, the collapse of most car brands, and the disappearance of various car-related industries, which is a downside.

The benefits are that it can once again stimulate residential infrastructure construction, create new jobs, allow the city to expand indefinitely, and significantly increase the scope of residents' daily activities.

This is the most radical option, and I don't think we'll choose it unless we want to rush into a cyberpunk society.

The second scenario is that only models cooperating with HarmonyOS will be able to enjoy the L5 support, which would impact other brands. I don't know, I could interfere, but I won't.

Because this is not my responsibility; I am just one of the technology developers, and I don't want to interfere with operations.

Just like TSMC manufactures AI computing cards for Nvidia, does it care where Nvidia sells these computing cards? It doesn't, and neither do I.

This is not my responsibility, nor should it be. These car companies need to find their own way to negotiate with Huawei. Since Huawei wants to become Bosch, I believe they will be willing to negotiate.

The third possibility is that all cars will offer Huawei's L5 autonomous driving option as an option in the future, which is probably the most likely scenario.

Therefore, the "Wait and See" party will never be slaves!

Lin Ran made a joke.

"Everyone is asking me what my views are on the stock market? Who will benefit after the A-share market opens tomorrow? Has DeepRed partnered with Cambricon? Has DeepRed partnered with Kunlun Tech?"
Okay, okay, stop there. I won't recommend any stocks!

Then I answered clearly that we are not currently cooperating with Cambricon. Would we consider it in the future? Yes, we would consider it. We are not opposed to cooperating with any Chinese chip manufacturer.

I'd like to offer some thoughts, not suggestions, but my own reflections.

That's what autonomous driving will directly impact. You've mentioned so many things, but why hasn't anyone mentioned insurance companies?
Level 5 autonomous driving means that car manufacturers will be held responsible. If a traffic accident occurs, the car manufacturers will be held liable. So why don't car manufacturers take a slice of the car insurance pie themselves? Why should they share it with traditional insurance companies?
I'm confident in my skills, so why don't I just provide the car insurance myself?
Just like who could have imagined that CATL would have physical stores in the past? It's like Bosch giving you a whole physical store in the era of gasoline cars. This is something that was unthinkable in the past, but it has appeared in the era of electric vehicles.

CATL's stores not only provide repair services, but they also sell cars!

New energy vehicle manufacturers can certainly sell car insurance to their own customers, as long as they are confident enough in their autonomous driving technology.

Therefore, with the emergence of L5, insurance companies will definitely be affected; it's just a matter of whether it will be immediately or for some time.

Huawei will almost certainly establish or acquire an insurance company to operate insurance for its Level 5 autonomous vehicles.

(End of this chapter)