Tech | Tiro Robot to Replace Teachers?
In our first ever post about robotic humanoid teachers, we would like to introduce Tiro, the creation of South Korea’s Hanjool Robotics Corp., in conjunction with Korea Advanced Institute for Science & Technology (KAIST) and three other research institutions.
Tiro was recently seen in a South Korean classroom interacting with awestruck students, asking them in perfect English: “How many giraffes are there on the board?”
Tiro’s debut offers a glimpse of the soon-to-come wave of robotics in everyday lives and hints at South Korea’s drive into the robotics market alongside Japan, a sometimes partner and longtime rival in robotics development in Asia.
The aim for South Korea’s next billion dollar growth industry is to put a robot in every home as early as 2015 and with a target completion year of 2020. There are currently plans in the works for developing a $500-million manufacturing base in 2009, designated as “Robot Land,” and researchers are already on schedule with academic research on robot ethics to prevent abuse by future robots.
I imagine it won’t be long before we all scramble for the latest Samsung housecleaning, billpaying, blogging robot of our own, or on the flip side, we could all be scrambling as robots try to enslave us.
In a sign of the cultural changes that will come with Tiro’s arrival, it was reported that the robot conducted a first ever role as master of ceremonies for the wedding of engineer Seok Gyeong-Jae and his bride.
Are you starting to feel irrelevant to the human race yet? Time to watch Will Smith’s I, Robot again?
Link research:
NY Times (April 2006)
BBC (March 2007)
Robots Will Rule the World (Blog)
–Editor
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From what I’ve seen a robot coded on remedial basic could probably teach better than about 40% of the foreign teachers in Korea.
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