A robot costing 100,000 yuan can give birth to a baby. Netizens' intelligence is being rubbed on the ground.

Just after attending the Robot Conference, a trending topic on the internet really stunned me:

"The world's first pregnancy robot is expected to be launched within a year."

What the heck? A pregnancy robot?

I clicked in and was shocked to find that a domestic company claims to be developing a robot capable of giving birth. It can simulate the uterine environment and provide a one - stop service from pregnancy to childbirth. Moreover, it will be available next year, priced at no more than 100,000 yuan.

As soon as the news came out, the internet went crazy. Not only major media outlets, but even family groups were abuzz. The old folks specifically @ me, saying that technology is developing so fast. If I don't find a girlfriend now, robots will be able to give birth on their own in the future, and I'll have nothing to do with it.

Dude, has Chinese technology really developed to this extent?

Many netizens even said that a 100,000 - yuan robot wife that can give birth is like bringing the world of "Rick and Morty" into reality.

But after thinking it over, something didn't seem right. I usually like to follow cutting - edge technology and know a bit about things in the ethical gray areas like artificial wombs and gene editing. If there were really such a major breakthrough, it would surely guarantee a Nobel Prize. How could an unknown company achieve it?

Well, I'm a bit of a stickler. I really dug into the ins and outs of this matter.

The result was astonishing. Let me cut to the chase. The story is fake, but the development process is truly absurd.

This is not a scientific innovation news at all. It's more like the wildest hoax in the tech circle this year, a complete amateur show.

To start from the beginning, this story made it onto the trending list mainly because some media reported related news. However, the real origin of this news is actually a video of a self - media interview with the company's boss.

What's most interesting is that after this story went viral in the past few days, the video can no longer be found on the entire internet.

Fortunately, the internet has a memory. Someone archived the video (which has also been deleted now). So I carefully watched it and found that the original words in the video were even more outrageous.

In this video, Mr. Zhang, the interviewed company boss, claimed that their technology is not just a simple combination of eggs and sperm for artificial insemination. Instead, it's about " through normal sexual behavior to make it (the robot wife) pregnant."

Everyone knows what "normal" means. But what's even more absurd is that the boss also said, after this robot gets pregnant, "its belly will bulge, and it will have a childbirth process just like a human being."...

Good grief! Anyone who has taken junior high school biology knows that pregnancy is an extremely complex physiological process. How can a robot made of metal, plastic, and silicone have "normal sexual behavior"? Will it bulge its belly by blowing up a balloon inside?

The video is so off - the - mark that any professional can tell it's unreliable. Dr. Geng, a biology Ph.D. YouTuber on Bilibili, even made a special video to severely criticize this matter.

So, the question is, what's the background of this company called Kaiwa? Is it really the case that there are hidden experts in the civilian population, and is this another industrial exploration?

With such a big stir, netizens of course didn't sit idle. By tracing the information online, they found that this company seems to have nothing to do with pregnancy robots...

If you click into their company's website homepage, you'll find that their main business is actually: hotel food - delivery robots.

Can the technology of food - delivery robots be used for child - bearing? Does that make any sense?

That's not all. A reporter from Yangcheng Evening News checked the company's patents. It turned out that the company has zero patents in related fields such as artificial wombs and bioengineering.

The more than a dozen patent certificates posted on the official website are mainly for things like "voice - customized management systems," "intelligent ordering systems," and "food - delivery management systems," which have nothing to do with child - bearing.

Many professionals also explained that the child - bearing process is extremely complex. With the current technology, at best, we can only develop an upgraded incubator that can keep premature fetuses alive outside the body for a little longer. The entire industry is still a long way from artificial wombs.

As a result, the attitude of the entire internet towards Kaiwa Robot Company has completely changed from regarding it as a miraculous feat at the beginning to thoroughly criticizing it. In the eyes of netizens, this technology is a castle in the air, and the product is non - existent. It's simply a complete hype, deceiving people's feelings.

But is this matter really clear now?

In the comment sections of many official accounts reporting this matter, I saw the founder of Kaiwa Robot Company, the same boss who was interviewed in the self - media video, leaving messages in various comment sections. In essence, he said: "I'm innocent! This has nothing to do with me. These unscrupulous self - media outlets have caused me so much trouble. Stop reporting and take down all the articles quickly!"

See, I told you this matter is not simple. As of now, many official media that previously reported this matter have quietly deleted their posts. There must be something fishy going on.

To figure out what's really going on, our editorial department also tried to contact him and finally added him on WeChat. It's the same person who left messages in the comment sections.

So, we became the first media in the entire internet to officially interview the boss of this company.

According to the version told to us by Boss Zhang, the truth is that the so - called "pregnancy robot" is a very distant concept in cooperation with a foreign team. The most core artificial womb is being researched by the foreign team.

And Boss Zhang's company is only responsible for one part in this industrial chain, which is to manufacture the body of the humanoid robot through OEM. In simple terms, it just makes the shell.

What is really planned to be "launched within a year" and "priced at no more than 100,000 yuan" is not a robot capable of giving birth at all, but merely the humanoid robot shell without any child - bearing function.

Recently, he also issued an official news release to refute the rumor, saying that the company doesn't have such a project at all, and the previously mis - publicized articles and videos have also been required to be taken down.

According to his explanation, the mis - spread of this matter is due to the random editing by online media. Even the original video made by the self - media was released without showing him the final version.

When he was being interviewed, he chatted with the host about a lot of random things. He didn't have a recording of that interview. However, the final edited version by the media didn't match his original intention at all.

He originally wanted to express that the humanoid robot shell will be available next year after several years of research and development. But after the editing, it made people think that they had developed a robot capable of complete pregnancy.

The media suddenly came to his company for an interview. He originally thought it was a member of the media group led by the government. Unexpectedly, it wasn't. He just casually accepted the interview, and that's how this mess happened.

At this point, it seems that we can't blame Boss Zhang. He just spoke without much thought and wasn't precise enough, and happened to encounter a media outlet that did malicious editing.

But after further investigation, I found that this media outlet is actually a bit special. It's not the kind of unscrupulous marketing account that people usually think of.

Mr. Wen, the host in the original video, is a very experienced media person. He was once the editor - in - chief of Phoenix Weekly under Phoenix TV and has also worked as a producer and host at Shenzhen TV. He's a senior in our industry.

Logically speaking, such an experienced industry professional is unlikely to make a big mistake in terms of journalistic ethics. So how should we explain this matter?

Afterward, we also contacted Mr. Wen by phone. The senior media person said that Boss Zhang has also been communicating with him about the interview recently. He plans to find some time to re - interview Boss Zhang to clarify everyone's doubts.

As for how they communicated during the interview and whether there was malicious editing as Boss Zhang said, Mr. Wen doesn't want to disclose too much. He just said that we should wait for their new program, and they will respond to everyone at that time.

So, what's the real situation of this matter? Is there malicious editing? Currently, it's still a mystery.