Which one is the robot?

“Bizarre” is the right word — apparently, there was an event at the White House to bless a future of AI humanoid slaves taking over all of our menial jobs, like, you know, teaching.

At a bizarre White House event on Wednesday, first lady Melania Trump walked side by side with an artificial-intelligence-powered robot before spelling out a vision of the future in which children are taught by a “humanoid educator.”

Trump was hosting an international summit on technology and education in the East Room and arrived accompanied by a white-and-black robot that matched her stride, at points unsteadily.

It looks more like a PR event for a tech company called Figure, or a demo of their current model of robot, called Figure 03. I looked up their robot, and the technical details are sparse. They claim it “takes care of household tasks like laundry, cleaning, and doing dishes, all autonomously” — you mean, it’s a glorified autoloader for the dishwasher and washing machine? I do all that already, and don’t need a robot to do it. Cleaning is a more complex task, but I don’t see how a robot is managing dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning up cat vomit, picking up the books I leave scattered all over the place and putting them back on the shelf correctly, or just generally tidying up after my sloppy self. They have videos of the robot in action, but they make it look like their most important task is walking slowly carrying a tray to serve champagne to wealthy venture capitalists at parties in your multi-million dollar home. A very important function to some people, I’m sure, but not something I’m at all concerned about.

You can buy your very own champagne-server and dishwasher loader for the low, low price of $30,000-$50,000, available in white, light gray, or soft blue.

Melania talked about how a humanoid robot could take over the task of teaching your children. Please note the very important word in the first sentence of this quote.

Addressing delegates at the two-day Fostering the Future Together summit, the president’s wife proceeded to speak glowingly about an imaginary robot teacher named Plato, an allusion to the philosopher in ancient Greece.

She envisioned the tech-fueled guide having a deep understanding of every major subject, including classical studies, and being available “in the comfort of your home.”

Arguing that AI will be “formed in the shape of humans,” she said the robotic Plato would “provide a personalized experience adoptive to the needs of each student.”

This “teacher” does not exist, and it specifically is not Figure 03, which looks like it’s straining its mighty brain just to walk across a room without falling over. She’s just “envisioning” things, you know. Maybe someday we can replace all those human classics teachers with machines that will also serve champagne. The techbros are all just waiting for mechanical Plato to walk into their house and teach them impressive-sounding stuff. Finally, an excuse to learn Latin, without the fuss of a human instructor!

Melania Trump is the perfect humanoid to promote this important cause.

But Trump didn’t linger. She was in the room for seven minutes for her introductory remarks, departing before a panel discussion on artificial intelligence in education and skipping the networking and relationship-building she encouraged her fellow spouses to take advantage of during Tuesday’s event.

Maybe she could have her personal humanoid robot do all those tiresome activities?