Kamal Ghorui
The American social media landscape has transformed into an anxious black hole overnight following a bold announcement from the White House. During the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition summit at the White House on Wednesday, March 25, Melania Trump arrived with a white humanoid robot by her side. Developed by the AI robotics company Figure, the robot was proposed as a recreation of ancient Greek philosopher Plato as a “personalised” educator for American children. As per the 55-year-old FLOTUS, the robot would provide an “instantaneous access to literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics and history.” “Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato,” Melania told the room, according to CBS News. “Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home,” she added. She pitched the idea before spouses of the world leaders from 40 countries across the globe, adding that the “future of AI is personified.” “The AI-powered Plato will boost analytic skills and problem solving and adapt in real time to a student’s pace, prior knowledge and even emotional state,” Melania continued, claiming that children will have more time to pursue other interests outside of school and spend time with friends.“Since our environment is designed for people, humanoid systems are uniquely suited to navigate and operate within our world. They fit well,” she added.As per CNN the robot “concluded its remarks with welcomes in 11 different languages with perfect pronunciation” before walking back down the Cross Hall. While the first lady may have hoped for the AI venture to get her some brownie points in a country leading the tech innovation, it seems this one was too close to home for the Americans who were instantly fearing for their jobs and their children’s futures. “They want to replace human beings. Where will we work? How do we make money? No one wants this. We did not ask for it,” wrote one user. “I don’t want my daughter’s teacher to be a humanoid robot named Plato. I want her teacher to be a human being that is paid a living wage and is not forced to work 3 jobs to survive,” added another. “Melania naming a teacher-replacement AI “Plato” is the ultimate irony. The real Plato taught that education isn’t just a data download—it’s the process of leading a soul ‘from darkness into the light’ Hard to do that with a motherboard— We need educators, not algorithms,” claimed one. “So let me get this straight… We replacing teachers now? With a machine named Plato?? Oh yeah… nothing says “raise a human being” like: “Error 404: empathy not found,” wrote another user. In February 2026, the unemployment rate in the US was 4.4%. With numerous tech giants predicting the loss of bulk jobs like coders, programmers, customer support and more, the future has already been scarily ambiguous for the people. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, about 3.8 million public school teachers work in America’s classrooms. Replacing their jobs with AI would leave a huge chunk of the population jobless, penniless and yes, disappointed with the administration that introduced a robot teacher in the first place.
