Why Is a San Diego Charter School Spending $500,000 on Two Humanoid Robots?

If you were a charter school with a cool half a million to drop, what would you spend it on? Budgeting for multiple new teachers? Perhaps expanding your curriculum or purchasing new teaching materials? Funding some sort of overseas trip to broaden your students’ horizons? Capital expenditure on your campus? Scholarships for underprivileged kids? If you answered any of the above, that’s why you’re not running a charter school. The correct answer is “buying two humanoid robots to lurk in your classrooms and function as fancy mouthpieces for ChatGPT.” Or, at least, that’s what San Diego charter school chain Altus Schools has decided. According to local news site Voice of San Diego, the school has spent $500,000 on two Ameca robots, a model described by its manufacturer, British-based company Engineered Arts, as “the world’s most advanced social humanoid robot.” The Ameca—which looks like a cross between Natalie Portman Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina and the sadly underutilized shape-changing android Kamelion from Fifth Doctor-era Doctor Who—apparently features “61 actuated degrees of freedom, allowing for natural and lifelike movements” and “a sophisticated communication system [that]