A rural New York school district approved a nearly $60,000 purchase of an AI humanoid robot from a company that also makes hyper-realistic sex dolls — and only hit after someone actually looked into who was selling it.
The Salamanca City Central School District board signed off on the Realbotix purchase with visions of "Sally," a stationary robot with long brown hair and moving arms, tutoring high schoolers on robotics and technology. Nobody at the district apparently bothered to vet the vendor's primary business until parents and teachers raised hell. If this is what gets caught, the question is what else is walking through the classroom door when nobody's looking.
Superintendent Mark Beehler sold the board on Sally as a teaching tool. "Having a difficult time programming an Arduino board? Don't even know what an Arduino board is? Ask Sally and she can explain it," Beehler said Tuesday. He also pitched the robot as a chance for students to learn maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting.
What Beehler didn't advertise: Realbotix's sister company builds hyper-realistic sex bots. District officials and the company insisted the two manufacturers operate independently. That wasn't good enough for the people who actually have to send their kids to these schools.
"A robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in our classrooms," said Melinda Person, president of the New York State United Teachers union.
Then there's the data problem. Parents and teachers immediately worried about what happens to students' personal information when an AI device manufactured by a sex doll company sits in a classroom. State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa flagged the contradiction in the district's own pitch: Beehler claimed Sally would have "no role delivering classroom instruction," but a board presentation called the robot a "tutoring platform." Rosa demanded answers on data privacy and security protections.
Beehler, who was connected to Realbotix through a former colleague, said the Las Vegas-based company was a natural fit because its robots run WozEd, a curriculum from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak that the district already uses. He insisted the pilot isn't about replacing staff. "There is no possible way a robot can replace a human in a school," he said. "Even if it were possible, it would in no way be in the best interest of students. Teaching is a human-to-human process."
The district posted on Facebook that Sally won't collect students' personal information. For now, the pilot remains on hold while the district works through "enhanced student data privacy agreements" with state officials and does community outreach.
Last year, a San Diego charter school spent $500,000 on two AI robots from Engineered Arts, a U.K. company, according to the Associated Press. The price tag there was more than eight times what Salamanca planned to spend — on a vendor with no sex doll ties. That comparison alone raises questions about what Salamanca was really getting for $60,000 and why.
A school board approved spending public money on a robot from a sex doll company, connected through a former colleague, with no data privacy agreement in place — and called it education. It took public pressure to stop it. The robot is d. The accountability shouldn't be.