NY School District Pauses Classroom Humanoid Robot Amid Privacy Concerns

Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness,

A western New York school district has hit pause on a plan to place a lifelike humanoid robot inside a high school classroom after regulators and community members raised concerns over student data privacy.

Salamanca City Central School District announced July 24 it was suspending a pilot program with robotics company Realbotix that would have brought an artificial intelligence assistant called Optio, paired with a seated, silicone-skinned humanoid robot, into AI and robotics courses this fall. District officials said they must finalize enhanced student data privacy agreements with the New York State Education Department before moving forward, and they are continuing to hear from the community.

The district agreed to pay $57,590 for the Optio platform and one M-Series robot, according to the school board contract, a discount off the robot's $95,000 list price. Had it proceeded, the program would have given roughly 500 high school students access to AI tutoring avatars, while the single physical robot served as a classroom demonstration tool, reportedly programmed with a Western New York accent and instructed to say "I don't know" rather than fabricate answers.

Some media reports have tied Realbotix's corporate parent to Intima LLC, a business in the adult companionship market, a connection the company strongly denies applies to the school project.

"For clarity, some media reports have falsely connected the Salamanca project to an adult product or adult-products business," Realbotix told CyberGuy. "The Salamanca robot is a newly manufactured, purpose-built educational unit; no existing product or hardware is being modified or repurposed for the school." The company added that its education-focused subsidiary "focuses exclusively on non-adult commercial applications" and said the two businesses do not share staff, facilities or technology.

Realbotix has cast the project as a teacher-supervised supplement, not a replacement for instructors. "The program is intended to complement, not replace, teachers by giving students supervised access to emerging AI and robotics tools as part of the district's existing STEM curriculum," the company said.