Should Schools Use Humanoid AI Robots?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why school leaders should think carefully about how humanoid AI robots in classrooms will be perceived.
Key Takeaways
- Think Beyond Novelty - Innovation alone is not a good enough reason to place a humanoid robot in front of students.
- Consider Public Perception - Principals should ask how a decision will look to students, parents, media, and the broader community.
- Use the Headline Test - Before approving a pilot, imagine the newspaper headline and whether it reflects sound professional judgment.
- Optics Matter in Leadership - Even if a tool is technically impressive, leaders have to weigh whether its use creates avoidable controversy.
- Pilot Responsibly - Trying new technology is fine, but only when leaders have fully thought through the educational purpose and likely reaction.
Full Transcript
The district in Western New York has purchased a very lifelike robot for use as kind of an AI tutor in its classrooms. And I think we have to never stop asking the question, how is this going to look? How is this going to look when we purchase a robot from a company that also makes... other kinds of robots for non-instructional purposes, how is that going to look to our students?
How are they going to react? How is it going to look to our parents? How is it going to look to the country and the media? Like, one of the things I was taught at leadership school was always envision what the newspaper headline is going to be.
Before you make a decision, think, how is this going to look if it gets written up in the paper in some sort of hit piece about me? Am I going to look like a reasonable person who made a good decision, who exercised sound professional judgment, or am I going to look
like the stupidest person who ever lived?
Like, I think we just have to do that thinking to avoid decisions like this. I mean, putting a robot, and not just, like, any robot, but, like, a specifically humanoid robot from a company that makes... specifically humanoid robots, yes, you know what I'm saying, in a classroom with 11th
and 12th grade students, and, like, I get the idea to, like, pilot new things, to try new things, to try to be innovative, but we should never do that without thinking, okay, wait, how is this going to look? What is the newspaper headline going to be?
And in this case, it's not going to be good. Nobody's going to be looking at the school district and saying, oh, yeah, they're innovative. Wow, I'm so impressed with how they're meeting their students' needs and being on the forefront of teaching and learning with this great new innovation. No, the headline is, of course, what kind of robot is this? Let me know what you think.