An initiative to place a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence (AI) in schools in Salamanca, New York, has alarmed teachers, The Guardian newspaper reports. The local teaching union called for a pause in the implementation of solutions from the Canadian company Realbotix, one of whose divisions produces high-tech sex dolls.
The partnership between the company and the school board was announced in June. It was expected that the educational support program would include two elements: AI Optio from Realbotix, which will help students cope with homework online, including for the summer, and a humanoid robot named Sally, which was going to be placed in classrooms from the new school year.
The company said that Sally, by analogy with other humanoids they produce, will be able to respond to questions in real time, express emotions with facial expressions, and also move her head and arms (she should have been seated at a separate desk).
Mashable and a number of other media outlets subsequently drew attention to the “childish” past of Realbotix, which initially began as a cryptocurrency startup, and in 2024 absorbed the American company Simulacra, which produced robots. Its division, Abyss Creations, still produces robotic sex dolls under the RealDoll brand, and the company's developments formed the basis for humanoids from Realbotix, which are positioned as humanoid AI assistants.
“The Salamanca teachers' union is concerned about the past of Realbotix. We are extremely concerned about the security of the software it implements and how the data will be stored and collected, whether it will be recorded [в кабинетах],” school teacher and union leader Lacey Pilblad told The Guardian.
New York school district to become one of the first in the United States to introduce a humanoid robot in the classroom.
'Sally' will have a Western New York accent and will teach 11th and 12th-grade students at Salamanca High School.
Sally costs less than the average teacher's… pic.twitter.com/gYqAL19QK0
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 19, 2026
New York State teachers union leader Melinda Person added that the initiative is “far from what should be done in schools.” According to her, the idea immediately seemed “scary” to her and her colleagues.
“The answer to challenges in education should not be an increase in the number of screens, algorithms and robots. Our schools now need more caring adults and more human contact,” Person emphasized.
On Friday, July 24, several local media outlets reported that the Salamanca School District had heeded teachers' calls and suspended the program, but the corresponding Facebook post was unavailable at the time of writing.
Realbotix did not directly respond to calls to pause the implementation of the AI assistant, nor to the observation that the area chosen for the experiment was a Native American reservation. The company also denied any connection between the humanoid Sally and sex dolls.
“The initiative is intended to complement, not replace, the work of teachers and will allow students, under the supervision of teachers, to work with rapidly developing AI and robotic tools as part of the Stem curriculum (with an emphasis in mathematics and emerging technologies – RTVI note). It will also allow teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of these technologies in a controlled classroom environment,” Realbotix representatives told The Guardian.
As Mashable notes, the school in the city of about 6,000 people adheres to the Woz ED STEM Pathway curriculum, curated by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. He has not yet commented on the controversy surrounding the AI assistant.
