From Grauniad of the UK
A spokesperson behind the pilot programme explained on local radio: "We have developed 2 different teaching assistants. Sally is a warm, friendly and caring female teaching assistant. Her role is to help students with the learning process. And then we have Grok: he is a middle-aged man and is armed with a ruler. He is the old-style, conservative kind of male teacher - the type that believes in corporal punishment, good manners, and all that. Grok is on hand to intervene if students are ill-disciplined. In extreme cases, Grok has a robocop outfit, with helmet and jackboots, and he is quite prepared to give a good beating to any teenage boys who misbehave, for instance. The students really appreciate the gore, because Grok can be genuinely cruel. The combination of Sally and Grok works really well. The teacher can sit at the back of the class, playing video-games on his, or her, smartphone: Sally and Grok take care of the on-site educational process. The kids tell us that they are loving it. They feel it's like being in a video-game, with lots of virtual reality, combined with reality TV at its best, or some kind of social-media experiment."
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A humanoid robot is being introduced as part of a pilot program, along with an AI teaching assistant, at Salamanca high school in Salamanca, New York, located on the Allegany territory of the Seneca nation.
Teachers have criticized the program, deeming it “inappropriate” and claiming it dehumanizes the profession with the introduction of human-like robots. Some local Native American residents have also criticized the pilot program, citing its implementation as “culturally tone deaf”.
The robot, named Sally, was purchased by the Cattaraugus county school district – which includes Salamanca high school – for $57,590. According to a presentation on the program, Sally will be a closed-loop system, but available virtually to students 24/7 for those with access, and offers personalized learning options.
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