WTF?! The first potential steps toward another profession being wiped out by AI are being taken in New York. When students in the Salamanca City Central School District in Western New York return to school in the fall, they will find a new teaching assistant: a robotic one powered by artificial intelligence. If that doesn't sound weird enough, the company behind the machine, Realbotix, is the parent of a hyperrealistic sex-doll manufacturer.
Located on the Seneca Nation reservation, the rural district will be one of the first to use the humanoid robot, part of Realbotix's M-Series and named Sally. It's integrated with Optio, Realbotix's AI-powered teaching assistant, which can be accessed by students off-site for out-of-hours learning.
One could argue that Realbotix's connection to sex robots is apparent in Sally. The machine has silicone skin, a human-like body, and concerningly plump lips. It also uses natural conversation, facial expressions, and real-time interaction to "create engaging, hands-on learning experiences." Each robot will cost $57,590, which is discounted from the $95,000 list price.
The robot doesn't walk around the classroom like some kind of Detroit: Become Human android; it stays seated and stationary, other than some upper-body movements.
An easily accessible AI in any school is going to raise concerns, but Realbotix promises that its program features strong school-specific safeguards for content and privacy, removing the risk of exposure to inappropriate, inaccurate, or biased information. It also has protections against inappropriate responses and unreliable outputs and operates under full district oversight.
Sally runs on a closed network with no public internet connection, and won't access personally identifiable student data. Users have to provide their student ID numbers to use the robot, which will then bring up personalized learning data.
Salamanca City Central School District is a designated Woz ED STEM Pathway district, an initiative founded by Steve Wozniak to prepare students for careers in STEM and emerging technologies. The initial Optio rollout will serve high school students enrolled in Woz ED AI and robotics courses, with plans to expand access to around 500 students during the fall semester.
Toronto-based Realbotix acquired Simulacra Corporation, the parent company of sex-doll maker RealDoll, in April 2024. Realbotix says its education division shares no employees, technology, or facilities with RealDoll – maybe it should have made Sally look a little less like a sex toy, then?
There's obviously plenty of controversy over the plan. Researcher Julie Carpenter points out that 79% of students on the Seneca Nation reservation are economically disadvantaged, which makes it an easier target for companies to sell their "innovative" tech at a discounted rate. She also notes that despite the safeguards, student data is being stored somewhere. The presence of cameras and microphones in a room full of minors, supplied by a company that also runs a sex-doll firm, is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser, too. And will kids form unhealthy attachments to these machines, preferring them over their human teachers?
As a robotics researcher, learning scientist, and author who has followed Realbotix for years, I'm compelled to do a Bluesky thread on this whole pivot that Realbotix is now trying, turning from humanoid sex robots to classroom "education" robots. Buckle up. nysfocus.com/2026/07/14/n... 🧵
– Julie Carpenter, PhD (@jgcarpenter.com) 16 July 2026 at 00:08
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Finally, there's the question of where this will lead. Realbotix and the school district emphasize that Sally is a teaching assistant who will not replace educators, but that's the same message we've heard ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene and generative AI took thousands of jobs. Teaching is one of those professions considered least at risk from AI replacement, but people never expected nurses to be replaced by AI, either.