22/07/2026
Mampukah robot Ai ganti guru di sekolah? 🤔
A New York school district is introducing 'Sally,' a $57,590 lifelike humanoid teaching assistant, setting off a nationwide debate on AI in public classrooms.
A rural New York school district is making history—and sparking national debate—by bringing 'Sally,' a lifelike humanoid robot, into its high school classrooms. The Salamanca City Central School District, located on the Seneca Nation reservation, purchased the $57,590 stationary robot from tech firm Realbotix to assist 11th and 12th graders in AI and robotics courses.
Sally features silicone skin, long brown hair, expressive facial movements, and even a localized Western New York accent. While school officials emphasize she is strictly an educational tool meant to prepare students for a changing workforce, the program’s steep price tag and the robot's hyper-realistic appearance have drawn widespread scrutiny.
Beyond the budget concerns, the pilot program has raised eyebrows due to Realbotix's corporate ties to an adult 'companion robot' manufacturer. To address security and ethical worries, Sally operates on a closed, offline AI network, and students will interact with her using anonymous IDs to ensure data privacy.
While school administrators assert that Sally will 'never replace teachers,' the project serves as a high-stakes test case for the future of interactive AI. As school districts across the country watch closely, Salamanca’s experiment could either pave the way for robotic teaching assistants or serve as a cautionary tale of classroom over-automation.
source: Manno, M. (2026). Rural NY School To Launch Humanoid Robot Teacher. New York Focus.
