SEOUL—Controlled remotely by English teachers in the Philippines, the 29 robots wheeled around the classroom while speaking to the students, reading books to them and dancing to music by moving their head and arms.
About one meter high with a TV display panel for a face, the robots have started teaching English to youngsters at a South Korean city, in a pilot project designed to nurture the nascent robot industry, according to education officials.
The robots display an avatar face of a Caucasian woman and the Filipino teachers can see and hear the children via a remote control system.
source: Inquirer.net
HOLY SHIT. I didn't really think it would happen in my lifetime but it did. Robots have entered the previously sacrosanct field of the academe, and to top it off, Filipinos are given the helm of these new mecha-teacher. And I thought MY teachers in gradeschool were dangerous.
I remember this one time, my classmate was tooling around in the fashion only a third grade could think of (hint: it involves more than the daily dosage of exposure to uncircumcised penis) and because of that, my teacher went apeshit. She started pulling on the poor dude's sideburns so hard he still probably has his face twisted from the pain up until now with his right patilla growing twice as fast as his left. He was made to stand on a desk with his pants down afterwards just to reinforce the idea that our dear Teacher was all business. This happened, of course, back when people still had the balls to exercise their god-given right to punish shitty children so they can grow up obeying the law with the knowledge that their sideburns might very well be pulled on by a brutish teacher from the depths of gradeschool hell.
Now think about it. All that happened without the aid of modern technology. Had our teacher been using a robot, the sideburn pulling would've been twice more brutal, and trust me, you do not want the force used in pulling your sidewhiskers measured in Pounds PER SQUARE INCH. If that does happen, I expect your brains to come out of the pores of your skin from the yanking.
From what the article suggests, even though right now the teachers are for preschool only and serve as remote mascots for children, the future just might be more terrifying (for school kids anyway) . Sure, they're dancing now. But what's going to prevent the motors that make these bots dance from breakdancing your bones six ways from fifth period?
Since I have waaaay too much time on my hands, I've prepared a short pros and cons list of robots replacing teachers:
PROs:
1. Teachers will no longer try to sell you shit in class, like candies, handicrafts, and life insurance (which is ironic because most likely you only need this to protect yourself from overzealous disciplinarians)
2. Brownouts mean more freetime - unless we're going up against battery operated instructors, in which case we just have to take out the Motolite guy.
3. SUBTITLES! I can't imagine how much knowledge gets unknowlingly lost ever year just because the teacher speaks with a voice that seems to be coming from a ghost who has strepthroat. I've heard ants chattering louder than some teachers. Honestly, this would be so awesome.
CONs:
1. It'd be a lot harder to come up with monickers and insults for teachers if the robots look the same. Where's the humanity in not being able to call your teacher "bangkay na nabuhay"?
2. In the same light, there'd be no more sexual fantasies involving teachers - unless the manufacturers of the robots are the same ones who sell sexbots online, in which case I suppose this should be a pro instead of a con. (if that's your sort of thing)
3. Would you really go against a robot? Really? Clearly you have not been watching a lot of Robocop. Good luck buddy.
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