The Salamanca City Central School District has put its AI robot on hold. The district, in a rural corner of upstate New York on the Seneca Nation of Indians reservation, said Friday on Facebook that the pilot is paused while it works through what it called enhanced student data privacy agreements with state education officials.
We covered the plan when it was announced. The board had approved a nearly $60,000 purchase from Realbotix for a stationary humanoid robot that staff and students already nicknamed Sally. She has long dark hair, moving arms and hands, and legs that don't work.
What the state said
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa wrote to the district Friday, after her staff had already met with district officials, and she wasn't satisfied.
Her sharpest point was about a mismatch. District officials had told the state the robot wouldn't teach. "Although you confirmed that the robot would not have any role delivering classroom instruction, a recent presentation to the board characterized the robot as a 'tutoring platform,'" Rosa wrote. She also pressed on what privacy and security protections would actually be in place.
The teachers union went further. "A robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in our classrooms," said Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers. She argued the robot is a step toward replacing people. "Our students don't need robots," Person said. "They need real relationships with caring adults."
What the district said
Superintendent Mark Beehler pushed back hard on the replacement idea. "There is no possible way a robot can replace a human in a school," he said Tuesday. "Even if it were possible, it would in no way be in the best interest of students. Teaching is a human-to-human process."
His pitch is that Sally is a teaching tool for kids studying robotics, not a substitute teacher. "Having a difficult time programming an Arduino board? Don't even know what an Arduino board is? Ask Sally and she can explain it," he said. Students would also learn to maintain the robot, update its approved content and troubleshoot it when something breaks.
Beehler said the district found Realbotix through a former colleague, and that the robots already run WozEd, a curriculum from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak that Salamanca uses. The pilot also covers an AI teacher's assistant and an at-home tutoring program.
On the privacy questions, the district has said Sally won't collect students' personal information, won't record audio or video, and won't send data back to the company. Everything stays stored on the machine, which the district says uses about as much power as a laptop. It's also been programmed to avoid sex, violence and gambling, and it can't search the open internet or pull answers from outside AI services.
The sex doll question
This is the part that set the community off, and the company's answer is about corporate structure. The school's robot comes from Realbotix LLC, which builds for healthcare, education and other non-adult uses. A sister company, Intima LLC, owns a stake in RealDoll, a longtime sex doll maker whose lineup includes AI-powered models marketed as the world's most advanced sex robot.
Realbotix says the two don't mix. "Realbotix LLC and Intima LLC have different product offerings with no crossover," the company said last week, adding that each has its own management, staff, payroll, facilities, manufacturing and product development. The company also rejected the idea that Sally is a made-over sex doll, calling her a newly manufactured, purpose-built educational unit with no modified hardware. On Tuesday it added that student sign-in would run through the district's existing systems, and that anything tied to a student stays encrypted and under district control.
Why a small district wanted one
Beehler's argument is about distance. Salamanca sits along the Allegheny River near the Pennsylvania line, and he says his students usually have to drive an hour or two to see this kind of technology at all.
"One of the intents of the robot is to help level the playing field and motivate students to continue studying robotics, AI, and STEAM related career pathways," he said.
Salamanca isn't the first school to try this. A San Diego charter school bought two AI-powered robots last year from Engineered Arts, a British robotics company, for $500,000.
Not everyone is sold
Joplin Ficek graduated from Salamanca High School in 2024 and now works at a daycare. She'd rather the money went to people.
"They just need to hire more people who are willing to put in the effort for the children," Ficek said. "They need more interaction with the children than having some robot raise our kids."
The district hasn't said when, or whether, the pilot restarts. For now it's promising more community outreach and a signed privacy agreement with the state before Sally does anything.
Sources
NPR: New York school pauses plan to deploy humanlike AI robot teacher after backlash
