Meet "Sally". She costs $57,000: less than the yearly pay of the average teacher in New York State. She is an automaton. A robot teacher. And she is coming online in a school district this coming fall semester.
Here is another picture of Sally courtesy of Realbotix, the company that created her:
"Welllll long , tall Sally, she's built for speed, she got
Everything that Uncle John need
Oh bay-bee, yeaaaah bay-bee, WHOO-OOOH, HOO-OO bay-beee
Havin' me some fun tonight, yeah! "
(I just couldn't resist that, folks.)
I think that Sally is a glorified Teddy Ruxpin. Remember him? The animatronic teddy bear that toy company Worlds of Wonder came out with in 1985. Sally probably has a cassette tape hatch in her back that contains her programming, lets her move her arms and head (she has legs but she's unable to walk).
The school admins swear that Sally and any other robots won't replace real teachers. But really, does anyone expect that to be the case? All Sally needs is periodic maintenance and updates/service packs, and she's cheaper than several years' salary of one teacher. No doubt the teachers unions are going to be keeping a wary eye on this one.
Well, the New York Post has much more about Sally and what she's supposed to do.
The only other thing I know to add is this, from Battlestar Galactica:
"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."
4 comments:
Creepy. This is how the Cylons start.
There needs to be a Dalek model for urban classrooms ... with working gunstick.
This story is bringing in quite a bit of traffic tonight, according to the stats. So welcome everybody!
It just occurred to me that this sort of robot, when integrated into one of the new self-driving cars, and you get Johnny Cab from the 1990 movie Total Recall.
Now THAT is scary. Imagine not paying the fare and the robot attacks you.
From the Wikipedia article about the Salamanca school district:
"In July of 2026, the school district faced criticism after announcing the implementation of an AI based robotic teacher.[13] Part of the controversy was prompted by the manufacturer Realbotix, due to its ownership of Abyss Creation, manufacturer of the RealDoll brand of sex dolls.[14] Realbotix states that "no employees, technology, or facilities" are shared between their education division and RealDoll."
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