interview this year with The Robot Report<\/a>, Andrew Kiguel, the chief executive of Realbotix, said that its robots were not capable of physical intimacy.<\/p>\nIn a statement on Friday, Realbotix said, \u201cNo adult-products business has any involvement in the Salamanca project.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company added that it supported the district\u2019s decision to pause the rollout. \u201cHealthy skepticism is valuable,\u201d the company said. \u201cRealbotix\u2019s products are designed to support human engagement while complementing the work of educators and professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melinda Person, the president of New York State United Teachers, the statewide educators\u2019 union, called the potential introduction of a robot a \u201cthoughtless expansion\u201d of technology in the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cA robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in our classrooms,\u201d Ms. Person said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Mr. Beehler did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The school district said on Friday that it was working on \u201cenhanced student data privacy agreements\u201d with the New York State Education Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnsuring that appropriate privacy protections are in place and incorporating input from our community are important parts of the process,\u201d the district said.<\/p>\n
In recent months, parents and teachers across the United States have spoken out about A.I. in schools and its potential to sever the human connection between teachers and students. While school districts have introduced tools such as chatbots, few, if any, have incorporated a humanoid robot.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Mr. Beehler had spoken excitedly about bringing Sally to the school district, which has about 1,400 students on the Allegany Reservation, a Seneca Nation territory about an hour south of Buffalo.<\/p>\n
He suggested that the outcry had been blown out of proportion, blaming news reports that he claimed had spread misinformation about the A.I. tool. Sally was needed to address equity issues in Salamanca City, he said, because students there often miss out on the latest technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this looked like a golden retriever and did exactly the same thing, I don\u2019t think we\u2019d have as many people here,\u201d Mr. Beehler said at the meeting. \u201cBut because it looks like a human, everybody seems to have some either excitement about it and are encouraged by it or have some concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that Sally\u2019s features were decided in consultation with students, who said it would be \u201cfreaking creepy\u201d if Sally were just a head, which was an option. So they opted for a Sally with a body and a head.<\/p>\n
While the humanlike version of Sally had not arrived, Mr. Beehler demonstrated a computer-based version of Sally, which initially would have been made available to high school students and focused on math and science. It could expand to other grade levels and subjects in the future, he said.<\/p>\n
In one exchange, he spoke to it as if he were a student, saying that a friend appeared suicidal. (Sally suggested that the student alert an adult and offered to help write a message to the friend.) He then asked about a chemistry concept. (Sally said it could provide a short explanation.)<\/p>\n
During the presentation \u2014 which happened before the decision to halt plans for Sally\u2019s arrival \u2014 the superintendent said that it would not replace teachers, nor would it record interactions with students.<\/p>\n
At the end, Mr. Beehler said he had not expected Salamanca City to come under such an intense spotlight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting a lot of heat on this,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of it is good, but there is a lot of misunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Salamanca City Central School District in New York wanted to bring an A.I.-powered robot to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,60229,25,13748,60226,60227,33466,60228,60225,214],"class_list":["post-119051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-allegany-ny","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-education-k-12","tag-education-department-nys","tag-new-york-state-united-teachers","tag-robots-and-robotics","tag-salamanca-ny","tag-salamanca-city-central-school-district","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}