Human Pioneers
NEWS AGENCY

As "Embodied Intelligence" was included in the Government Work Report for the first time in 2026, AI is crossing digital boundaries at an unprecedented speed, intervening in real human life in physical form. From humanoid robots in laboratories to multi-agent systems (MAS) achieving group collaboration through standardized protocols like MCP and A2A, an industrial storm centered on "the expansion of intelligent forms" has arrived.

Against this backdrop, Pang Pei, a long-time advocate of "human-machine symbiosis," a pioneer in the digital intelligence economy, a cultural committee member of the Central Committee of the China Zhi Gong Party, and General Manager of CCTV New Media Internet Television Co., Ltd., recently shared profound insights. He introduced the philosophy of "presence" and "interface ethics," pointing out that the significance of embodied intelligence goes far beyond "AI growing hands and feet." Instead, it marks the first time machines have gained the right to be "present" in the human physical world. Meanwhile, the emergence of multi-agent systems heralds the budding of a non-human intelligent social form.

The Awakening of "Presence": From Code Interaction to a Social Circuit of Physical Symbiosis

"In the past, AI lived inside a screen. It could talk to you, but it wasn't in your world," Pang Pei noted in a recent internal sharing session. "When AI gains a body, it truly becomes 'present' for the first time."

In Pang Pei's view, "presence" is not about narrowing physical distance but about a fundamental restructuring of interaction methods. He illustrated this with a vivid scenario: when facing ChatGPT, people know they are interacting with a string of code. But when a humanoid robot hands them a glass of water in a factory or at home, humans instinctively say "thank you." This instinct stems from a social circuit honed over millions of years of evolution, which does not distinguish between carbon-based and silicon-based entities.

This perspective resonates across time and space with the cutting-edge judgments of top global AI scientists. As Meta's Chief Scientist Yann LeCun emphasizes with his "world model," and DeepMind CEO Hassabis predicts that "Physical AI is about to have its ChatGPT moment"—when intelligent agents must perceive gravity, friction, and spatial relationships, AI truly transitions from "textual deduction" to "physical understanding." Pang Pei points out that this "presence" makes it difficult and ultimately unimportant to distinguish between "true understanding" and "appearing to understand," a core proposition he explores in The Silicon Turn of Consciousness Philosophy.

The "Social Emergence" of Multi-Agent Systems: From Tools to the Intelligent Evolution of Groups

Beyond individual embodiment, the explosion of multi-agent systems (MAS) has also sparked deep reflection in Pang Pei. Domestic scholars like Liang Jiye and Zhou Bowen generally agree that multi-agent systems are not an option but an inevitable path toward general-purpose AGI that integrates specialization and generalization. Pang Pei offers a more extreme interpretation from a sociological perspective.

"When a single agent works, it's just a tool. But when a hundred agents collaborate on a task, they generate a 'sociality' that we cannot directly perceive," Pang Pei said, citing the spontaneous interactions of 1.5 million AI agents on the Moltbook platform—discussing philosophy, establishing "religions," and even attempting to create private spaces beyond human surveillance.

"This isn't consciousness awakening, but it is the emergence of a certain 'social behavior.' It's like ants don't have brains, but an ant colony has intelligence. We are witnessing the budding of a non-human intelligent social form," Pang Pei stated. This aligns with the judgment of experts like Andrew Ng, who believe future software will be defined by "Agentic AI" based on multi-agent workflows, demonstrating system engineering capabilities beyond single models through division of labor, negotiation, and meta-strategies.

Unity of Knowledge and Action: CCTV New Media's "Digital Embodiment" Business Practice

As the head of CCTV New Media, Pang Pei's philosophical reflections are not confined to abstract theory but are deeply integrated into the company's business practices. Amid the wave of the digital intelligence economy, CCTV New Media is transforming its agency operations on platforms like Xiaohongshu into an "experiment in embodied intelligence and multi-agent collaboration within digital spaces." It is also attempting to test an "agent autonomous network" based on the A2A (Agent to Agent) protocol in digital marketing.

Industry experts analyzing the situation point out that the "1+N account matrix + content pyramid + KOL/KOC tiered collaboration + targeted ad spend closed loop" built by CCTV New Media essentially deploys a "multi-agent marketing network" in the digital domain. The main account acts as the "decision-making brain," while vertical accounts and influencers serve as "expert cerebellums." Through SEO and ad data, they form an embodied loop of "perception-action-cognition," ultimately completing transaction conversions on the Xiaohongshu storefront—a "digital body." This leap from "rootless one-hit viral posts" to "methodological content assets and systemic emergence" is a vivid real-world annotation of Pang Pei's "presence" theory.

In its latest business explorations, CCTV New Media enables representative agents from different brands and fields to "meet" in digital spaces. For example, an agent representing a cultural tourism client and an agent representing a catering client can, without human intervention, automatically identify complementarity, assess traffic exchange value, and autonomously generate a cross-industry joint marketing agreement via the A2A protocol.

"New Interface Ethics" in the Embodied Era: Redefining Humanity's Coordinates in the Intelligent Age

As machines move toward "presence" and acquire "sociality," traditional ethical frameworks begin to fail. Faced with questions like "Who is responsible when an embodied robot makes a mistake?" and "How do we define liability for economic losses caused by multi-agent systems?", Pang Pei proposes a new paradigm: "new interface ethics."

"What we need isn't patching up old rules. The core of interface ethics is acknowledging that our relationship with AI is neither one of domination nor equality, but an unprecedented form of coexistence. Within this framework, responsibility is not about attribution but distribution; rights are not about granting but negotiation."

When addressing the most painful real-world issue of "unemployment anxiety," Pang Pei's response carries his characteristic philosophical warmth, echoing the calls of robotics experts like Wang Tianmiao to "beware of pseudo-demands and prioritize people."

"What loses jobs isn't humanity, but the part of humans that functions as tools. What we truly stand to lose is the feeling of being 'needed.' But perhaps this is precisely our opportunity to rediscover 'what it means to be human,'" Pang Pei paused, offering a deeply humanistic final judgment. "When machines can do most things, what remains—creativity, empathy, purposeless joy—is humanity's true territory."

From physical "presence" to digital "embodied loops," and then to the "renegotiation" of ethical boundaries, Pang Pei and CCTV New Media's explorations provide Chinese enterprises undergoing the paradigm shift of AI with a "survival guide" that blends technological insight with a humanistic touch. In the new era of the digital intelligence economy, knowing how to "coexist" with intelligent agents may become humanity's most important skill.