Mesmerized and Bamboozled: Resisting Tech's Spectacular Sales Pitches

The dulcimer player, Marie Antoinette's miniature automaton.

This week, a brief item in Munsell's The Annals of Albany (v. 10) grabbed me. Looking for leads about whether my ancestors participated in the Anti-Rent Rebellion, I found an account of a spectacle instead. It was recorded in January 1838, a year before Stephen Van Rensselaer's death provoked the tenant farmers' Declaration of Independence.

O.M. Coleman, a mechanic of this city, produced an automaton which played upon a musical instrument distinct from itself, an achievement never before accomplished. It consisted of a figure of a female, and played any tune within the compass of an accordion.

I haven't uncovered much more about Mr. Obed M. Coleman. He also invented some sort of aeolian harp attachment for piano, which did not, however, become a popular success.

Perhaps Coleman's automaton was the first to play an accordion, but Marie Antoinette had already become the proud owner of an automated dulcimer player in the 1780s.

You can watch the French queen's 18th century wind-up toy here:

As we move between past and present, let's keep in mind how overblown the claim about Coleman's "achievement" was. His female figure had an infamous predecessor.

Mechanical inventions have fascinated and entertained us for centuries. We have long turned our skills in clockwork and other artifices toward automation, to mimic living beings. From birds, to knights, to playful ladies, here are a few examples:

7 Early Robots and Automatons

From Leonardo Da Vinci’s android to a French-made artificial duck, learn more about seven early mechanical wonders.

Part of what impressed folks about Antoinette's automaton was that the mechanism powering it had been rendered small enough to hide under its skirts. This no doubt added appeal, making its appearance as a freestanding, separate agent more convincing. Keep this in mind, too.

While an accordion-playing automaton would have been enough to get my attention, the timing also made it particularly interesting.

A western New York school district recently announced the purchase of a humanoid robot for class use. It first came across my radar sounding like "a done deal." The Salamanca school district had acquired it at a "discount" price of $57K, to be launched at their small town high school this fall. Superintendent Mark Beehler reportedly felt this redressed a tendency for "city kids" to get things first.

The image circulating was startling, and I filed it away to look into more fully.

Local pushback began making news, nudging me to take a closer look. More throughline intersections with my other research popped up.

If you've been following along for a while, you'll recall that I've written a series of pieces about AI and the role of technology in our lives. Here's one of those, if you're newer here and need a good place to look for more coverage:

I'll reiterate here that the vague term "AI" gets applied to a range of technologies, making it hard to have nuanced discussions. Even the term robot can have broad, varied application.

We already use many types of software, applications, programs, and other automated processes that we consider time-saving and efficient. They're a product of skill and intelligence, even if we don't view them as possessing intelligence. But our perceptions of what AI is, and our questions about what it can or should do for us, have become increasingly blurry and fraught.

My feeling is that the more advances in technology make the mechanisms less visible—hiding them under the automaton's skirt, so to speak—and also emulate human features in increasingly convincing ways, the more we need to be talking about it.

Here are some things to know about the Salamanca robot, created by Realbotix. Realbotix CEO, Andrew Kiguel, describes "Sally" as a having a “'lifelike appearance' with silicone skin and long brown hair." It also has an avatar form, accessible through students' computers.

The word "lifelike" is important. Beam's report below quotes Kiguel as saying "the company’s goal is to produce robots and AI that are 'indistinguishable from humans.'”

Now recall the grand claims made for the Albany automaton, and the fact of its predecessor. Consider what Kiguel claims about "Sally":

“This deployment in a working school district represents a landmark moment for both AI and humanoid robotics . . . Salamanca marks the beginning of a new era where humanoid robots and intelligent AI assistants become standard tools in STEM education.” (quoted in Manno)

As with so much tech hype, this language presents it as progress—an inevitable step forward. If humans exercise agency, however, this isn't a foregone conclusion. The responses of parents, teachers, teacher unions, and community members could change the trajectory. That is, if enough of us are paying enough attention to the details.

Sally's Predecessor

Some of those details involve Realbotix's association with the manufacture of "Sally's" predecessor: the sex doll. Realbotix has been scrambling to differentiate itself from its direct roots in that business. But the signs of lineage are as clear as the inflated lips on the robot's face (these appear to have been toned down for her computer avatar.)

Then there's the rationalizing, through an all-or-nothing framing of AI use. Here's Superintendent Beehler: “Many schools are taking the easy solution of simply banning it, but I have found that students will find a way around most rules that schools put in place . . . it is critical for schools to teach proper use of technology, not simply exclude it.” There's a vast distance between ChatGPT on some kid's phone and a humanoid robot sitting in a school room.

And then there's the question of context. As Manno notes,

"Salamanca is the only incorporated city in the United States located entirely within a Native American reservation. The school district serves roughly 1,300 students, including 32 percent who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native and 79 percent who are economically disadvantaged."

Here the late environmental educator, Chet Bowers comes to mind. Many years ago, he critiqued the rush to embrace more classroom computer learning programs. Implemented carelessly, he warned, it could devalue and disrupt indigenous lifeways and traditions of knowledge transmission.

The juxtaposed images in Beam's report wordlessly recall the impact of residential schools, as well as the issue of "Indian mascots." Salamanca's warrior logo is a unique case: the Seneca Nation granted them special permission for it.

And it came from a Seneca artist. Carson Waterman created it; I wrote about his native plant illustrations, here:

In light of all this, I think New York State United Teachers are right to warn us:

"What stopped this robot was not a law. It was not a regulation. It was not any policy of the State of New York, because no such policy exists. It was an investigative news story, the parents and educators who read it and a Commissioner's letter . . . Had those pieces not fallen into place, "Sally" would be seated in front of students this September and nothing on the books would have required a single question to be asked first. This will happen again." (quoted in Beam)

This will happen again. We urgently need informed, in-depth public scrutiny. We need to discuss what are appropriate uses of technology; how to gauge their impact; and how their costs/benefits are measured within the larger picture of school budgets, community and cultural needs, labor concerns, etc.

We need to ask: which technology creates more risk of erasing or replacing humans? Which may be more culturally and pedagogically appropriate?

Here's a promising alternative example. NPR recently reported on a native youth-led initiative to build their own robots to promote language revitalization (https://www.npr.org/2026/07/26/nx-s1-5825798/robot-speaks-endangered-native-american-languages).

In contrast with the Salamanca example, the robots conceived by Ojibwe entrepreneur Danielle Boyer are student-built. I'm impressed by Boyer's website and her vision for indigenous robotics. She offers clear, thoughtful explanations of the cultural considerations relating to aspects such as size, style, accessibility, and materials used.

The first video introduces her work, the second, longer one follows her process as she earns an MIT Solve fellowship and scales it up.

Sure, accordion playing automatons might have entertained our ancestors, and silicone-skinned robotic humanoids might wow some of us today. But I'd rather watch actual teens wiring up ECGAR cars (Every Child Gets a Robot) and training Skobots.

And I object to the language of techie headlines like this one, that again, attempt to exclude human agency from the scene of action: