LAST WEEK, FIRST Lady Melania Trump appeared at the White House, flanked by a sleek humanoid robot, and eagerly promoted the idea of robots teaching children.

The pair walked into the room together, both visions of mostly white with eerily similar gates stepping in tune with one another. Afterwards, the robot introduced itself as Figure 3 and said in a neutral American female voice, “I’m grateful to be part of this historic movement to empower children with technology and education.”

At the event, Mrs Trump specifically mused on a robot educator named after the philosopher Plato and urged her audience to imagine that: “Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics and history.”

I can picture the scene now, my child, with his cherubic face, repeating basic maths or regurgitating Plato’s ideas while a large plastic and metal figure looms over him with a face, shiny and black that recalls a fencer’s sabre mask.

For years, we’ve witnessed the impact of placing small black screens in small, growing hands. Shortened attention spans, disrupted sleep, trouble socialising, and skyrocketing mental illness among youth, with a record number of kids suffering from depression and anxiety. Now, Mrs Trump wants us to place bigger machines with bigger black screens in front of our children. Sure, what could go wrong?

It would be easy to dismiss the First Lady’s ideas, and simply say “This will never happen!” — but it would be a dangerous mistake. The last time a Trump was underestimated and dismissed was in 2015, around the Republican presidential primary. Look how that panned out.

Scenes out of “I, Robot” but in real life

Figure AI, the company that created the Figure 3 humanoid robot, muses that its technology can “eliminate the need for unsafe and undesirable jobs” with the ultimate goal of humans living happier lives.

On their website, their humanoids are shown doing jobs like watering houseplants, accepting a bag of groceries, or serving glasses of champagne while most of the humans lounge and laugh in the background.

I robot 2004 Real Alex Proyas Will Smith. Collection Christophel © Davis Entertainment / Laurence Mark Productions. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

These snippets might as well be scenes from the 2004 movie, “I, Robot,” in which humanoids become ubiquitous parts of everyday life, and the detective played by Will Smith uncovers the robots’ plot to enslave the human race. But don’t worry, Figure AI all but promises not to place its robots in any roles that would inflict harm on humans, like in the military. It’s written on their website, so we can trust them!

Instead, the company sees their robots as supplementing, or replacing entirely, three business categories they identify as: physical labour, consumer household, which includes caring for ageing populations, and space exploration.

To put myself through university, one of my many jobs was cocktailing. I, not a robot, was handing out the champagne flutes. Sure, some people might have seen me as nothing more than a server, but in that time, I had many small, beautiful interactions with people.

It’s easy to see robots taking service jobs, but we’ll lose so much in the process. I’m thinking of the gelato shop in my small town where I get to practice my Italian with the owner who greets me with a smile. A “buon appetito” and “arrivederci” from a robot handing me a cone would never compare.

Learning at what cost?

Figure AI imagines and promotes a world where robots can “think, learn, reason and interact with their environments will eventually be capable of performing tasks better than humans.”

Proponents of this type of technology in education might cite studies like University of Chicago’s, which found that students experienced less anxiety when reading to social robots than human teachers.

I AM MOTHER 2019 de Grant Sputore Hilary Swank. science fiction; sci-fi; robot Prod DB © Netflix - The Penguin Empire - Southern Light Films - Rhea Fi Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Our goal for our children shouldn’t be to eliminate all potential uncomfortable feelings and hardship, but to teach them how to overcome those challenges and succeed in activities like reading aloud despite them.

What it seems this technology is actually doing is eliminating what makes us human, our interactions and relationships with each other, all together. Struggling helps us grow. Mastering a skill despite our fears is part of the human experience. Maybe children are less afraid of reading in front of robots because there’s less of an emotional stake. So they’ll read with less tension, but at what cost?

Teachers can provide a sanctuary robots never will

Setting aside what mass use of this technology would mean for the physical environment (AI demands extreme amounts of energy) and the economy (how will people earn a living if robots are doing the majority of jobs?), let’s focus just on what Mrs Trump is proposing: robots as educators.

Teachers do more than just spit out information. They foster relationships with students that can inspire careers; they can make children feel seen and heard; and in some cases, they can save them.

I’m thinking of author and academic Katriona O’Sullivan’s experience as a disadvantaged and neglected child. She was bullied by the other children, called “pissy pants” for having trouble wetting the bed. But a teacher helped empower her at a time she desperately needed. In her memoir ‘Poor’, Katriona movingly writes about how her school teacher taught her how to clean herself and gave her clean underpants that the teacher would then take home and wash for Katriona every week.

Katriona writes, “I felt as though I was standing in a beam of sunlight. She will never know what she did for me, how in that small bundle of towel, flannel and pants, Miss Hall gave me power.”

Or another real case of a teacher in Ireland identifying a child being sexually abused at home and getting them help. And I’m thinking of one of my own university professors, who saw me struggling and whose guidance and care stopped me from dropping out or worse.

Humanoids can’t replace humanity, but if we let them become ubiquitous in our lives, they might just erase it.

Adriana Casserly is a freelance writer and journalist in the northwest of Ireland. Previously, she was a staff editor at The New York Times. 

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