A robotic teacher with an eerily lifelike face is proving a hit in Japanese classrooms.
The robot teacher, called Saya, looks like a life size doll (Am I the only one who finds them creepy?) and can express six basic emotions because it / she / he ??? has rubber skin which is pulled from the back by 19 motors. Wow! 19 motors!
According to Daniels and Worthingham's Muscle Testing, humans have 6 muscles round the eye, 3 round the eyelids and eyebrows, 4 round the nose, 12 round the mouth, and 8 for chewing. A total of 33. And a human is capable of thousands of facial expressions, not just 6.
Besides which, if you try this in a classroom in the UK, that poor little robot will be toast.
Still the writing is on the wall, or the chalkboard. Robots will be teaching our children in the not too distant future. And they'll stick rigidly to the curriculum, so our children will learn exactly what the PTB (Powers That Be) want them to.
I don't think so.
"And the teachers were people. . . .
The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: "When we add the fractions 1/2 and l/4--"
Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had."
But just imagine the fun Margie could have disassembling the robot. 😉