Mommy I had to stay in school with Miss Robot!

This sentence will often be used by Japanese children when they
talk about their new teacher.

In a Japanese primary school there’s a new teacher, called Saya. At first sight she seems a friendly, middle-aged woman but if you look more precisely you’ll notice that Saya is more than that.
Saya is the first robo-teacher!

Boon or bane?
On the one hand she has many advantages compared with human teachers: She’s able to speak several languages; she’ll never be sick and she’s burnout-resistant.
Saya is never tired unless her batteries are too low.
On the other hand she always needs someone to look after her because Saya can’t walk. She can’t help her students with emotional problems because of her cold metallic heart… she feels NOTHING!

What is Saya’s future?
If Saya passes the test, Japan will let her teach thousands of young students.
This will lead to many problems between humans and robots.  

Ethical problems
A few years ago there was the first meeting where the scientists discussed the difficulties if robots break into human everyday life. The experts call this science “roboethics”.
The parents of Saya’s students are worried about their children being in the responsibility of a robot. In addition the human teachers are afraid of losing their jobs. They are not the only ones: many people are scared of being replaced by robots and machines nowadays. Although there are lots of discussions about roboethics, no laws or directives on how to use robots exist yet.
Eventually, the moral decision will lie in people’s hands only. The experts get to the point: “We don’t need roboethics... we need human ethics.”
 
To sum up, we reject the idea of robot- teachers. But in our opinion we are not allowed to stop technical progress. So we have to accept that we must learn how to deal with robots.