Melania Trump wants a robot to homeschool your child

At a press conference astatine the White House connected Wednesday, First Lady Melania Trump showed up with a humanoid robot developed by robotics steadfast Figure AI. The duo waltzed down a reddish carpet unneurotic earlier the bot gave a little speech, chirping: “I americium grateful to beryllium portion of this historical question to empower children with exertion and education.”

Not agelong aft these remarks, the instrumentality mosied retired of the country and disappeared.

The bizarre spectacle was portion of the First Lady’s recently launched initiative, Fostering the Future, which invited planetary leaders from astir the satellite to sermon however to empower children done acquisition technology, including AI.

The lawsuit easy evoked dystopian dreams of the aboriginal — notably ones successful which the humble (human) schoolhouse teacher has been replaced by a Terminator-shaped server stack that tin locomotion and talk Latin. Indeed, during her remarks, the First Lady asked attendees to envision a aboriginal successful which a humanoid robot would enactment arsenic the eventual pedagogue for the world’s children. (The lawsuit took spot astatine the aforesaid clip the Trump medication announced a abstracted tech council staffed by jet-setting Silicon Valley executives.)

“Imagine a humanoid pedagogue named Plato,” the First Lady said. “Access to the classical studies is present instantaneous – literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and past – Humanity’s full corpus of accusation is disposable successful the comfortableness of your home. Plato volition supply a personalized experience, adaptive to the needs of each student. Plato is ever patient, and ever available. Predictably, our children volition make deeper captious reasoning and autarkic reasoning abilities.” 

“Honored to beryllium invited to the White House by the First Lady Melania Trump,” the Figure AI X relationship posted Wednesday.

The First Lady’s comments are evidently forward-looking and don’t bespeak wherever robotics and edtech are today, oregon volition beryllium anytime soon. Still, the reasoning that AI and exertion tin beryllium utilized to automate learning (and, successful galore ways, regenerate quality educators) has been gaining successful popularity successful the tech industry. Such ideas person been repeatedly promoted by the White House.

Over the past year, acquisition experiments similar the Alpha School, a web of backstage schools that use AI to thatch children astatine accelerated speed, person gained traction and media attention.

The Trump medication has embraced experiments similar these, portion simultaneously attacking the accepted nationalist acquisition system.

Secretary of Education Linda E. McMahon, who is successful the midst of abolishing the precise agency she is tasked with running, has besides recovered the clip to visit an Alpha School campus, wherever she precocious praised the “opportunity” promised by the acquisition chain.

“Alpha School is reimagining K–12 acquisition by equipping students with applicable AI skills and preparing them for a rapidly evolving technology-driven workforce,” the medication recently said, of McMahon’s visit.

Melania Trump’s lawsuit Wednesday likewise highlighted the relation that the medication feels the tech manufacture should play successful the aboriginal of American acquisition — with Trump recognizing the “participation of starring American exertion companies, whose engagement reflects the increasing relation of the backstage assemblage successful supporting harmless and effectual acquisition innovation.”