Saya, Japan's Robot Substitute Teacher

Students at a Tokyo elementary school were delighted to find their teacher had been replaced by a robot. The talking humanoid, named “Saya,” was originally developed as a receptionist robot in 2004 by professor Hiroshi Kobayashi of the Tokyo University of Science, but has recently begun taking on work as a substitute teacher. Japan's robot teacher calls roll, smiles and scolds, drawing laughter from students with her eerily lifelike face.

The robot teacher, called Saya, can speak multiple languages and express six basic emotions — surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness, sadness — because its rubber skin is being pulled from the back with motors and wiring around the eyes and the mouth.

“Robots that look human tend to be a big hit with young children and the elderly,” Kobayashi recently told the Associated Press. “Children even start crying when they are scolded.”

However, Saya needs to work on improving her classroom management skills. At present, she can’t do much more than call out names and shout orders like “Be quiet.” But that does not make her any less popular with the kids. "Simply turning our grandparents over to teams of robots abrogates our society's responsibility to each other, and encourages a loss of touch with reality for this already mentally and physically challenged population," Ronald C. Arkin, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology said.

Noel Sharkey, robotics expert and professor at the University of Sheffield, believes robots can serve as an educational aid in inspiring interest in science, but they can't replace humans.

"It would be delusional to think that such robots could replace a human teacher," he said. "Leading scientists, engineers and mathematicians, almost without exception, talk about that one teacher who inspired them. A robot cannot be that kind of inspirational role model."

Kobayashi says Saya is just meant to help people and warns against getting hopes up too high for its possibilities.

"The robot has no intelligence. It has no ability to learn. It has no identity," he said. "It is just a tool."

But would he create a robot in human form, say, a fantasy friend with movie-star looks?

"Sure," he says, "If you're willing to pay."

That made-to-order robot will cost about 5 million yen ($51,000).

Source: NYDailyNews , Pinktentacle