Saya Robot Teacher

Teaching should be a noble profession for many, but there is a danger of it using robot teachers instead of human ones as evident by this trial in a primary school in Tokyo. Known as Saya, she is able to converse in various languages, carry out roll calls, assign tasks to students as well as perform facial expressions to denote her current “mood”, thanks to the 18 motors located right under her latex face. It would be interesting to see whether the Teacher Robot concept will catch on, or will it be a novelty and technology showcase instead. We wonder whether Saya is able to catch students passing notes in class as well as plagiarizing one another’s homework. Does detention for the kids mean being sent to some sort of factory to spend time with industrial robots in order to reflect on their actions?