New York school district halts plan to use humanoid robot amid backlash

Salamanca City Central says it is pausing project with Realbotix as it addresses concerns including data privacy

A New York school district has walked back plans to introduce a humanoid robot at its high school after the proposal sparked backlash from educators and community members.

The Salamanca City Central school district announced on 24 July in a social media post that its pilot project with Toronto-based tech company Realbotix had been put on hold “while we work through enhanced student data privacy agreements with the New York State Education Department and continue engaging with our community and stakeholders”.

“Ensuring that appropriate privacy protections are in place and incorporating input from our community are important parts of the process. We appreciate your patience and will share additional updates as they become available,” added the school district, which is located on the Seneca Nation reservation in upstate New York and serves a large Native American population.

The reversal came after widespread criticism of the program, which would have brought a humanoid robot named Sally to Salamanca high school. According to a Realbotix press release issued in June, the approximately $58,000 robot with silicone skin and brown hair was intended to use “natural conversation, facial expressions and real-time interaction to create engaging, hands-on learning experiences”.

“The robot aims to encourage student participation and provide early exposure to emerging technologies,” the company also said.

A little more than two years before Friday’s announcement, Realbotix acquired Simulacra, a Las Vegas-based company that manufactures sex dolls.

The New York State United Teachers union had condemned the plans calling for high schoolers to be taught by a humanoid robot.

“A robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in our classrooms,” Melinda Person, the union president, said in a 23 July statement.

Person added: “Our students don’t need robots. They need real relationships with caring adults. Educators notice when students are struggling, celebrate when they succeed and help them discover who they can become. No robot can do that, no matter how lifelike its skin or specific its regional accent.”

Lacey Pihlblad, the president of the Salamanca Teachers’ Association and a teacher at the high school, also criticized the proposal, saying : “The Salamanca teachers’ union as a whole is concerned about the background of the company of Realbotix. We’re very concerned about the security of the software that they’re implementing, and whether or not the data will be stored, how it will be gathered, [and] the recording capabilities.”

Other educators also questioned why the pilot program was being launched at a school serving a large Native American population.

Speaking to the Guardian recently, Sierra May Abrams, a substitute teacher at Salamanca high school, said: “Out of all the schools in New York state, let alone in the US, they chose to experiment on Native American children yet again.”

Abrams alluded to the history of brutality at Native American boarding schools in the US and said: “Our culture is struggling to stay alive due to the impact of [ that ] and what they did to our elders. We live on the only reservation located in a city so it’s just absolutely insane that we’re the ones ‘testing it out.’”

Following the Salamanca district’s decision to pause the program, Realbotix’s CEO, Andrew Kiguel, told New York Focus: “We fully respect any decision the school makes and encourage thorough due diligence by all parties involved.

“We want the program to be demonstrably safe, fully district-approved, and strongly supported by teachers … We stand firmly behind [the program] as a supportive tool designed to assist teachers and students, not replace them.”