EngKey telepresence robot teaches English to Koreans by way of the Philippines

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You know, for all the hubbub we've been hearing about le robots (the
robots), you'd think we'd see them put to better uses than chasing our
pets and killing people. Right? Right. Well, the best use we can think
of is education, and that's exactly what they're doing at an
elementary school in Daegu, South Korea. Developed by the Korea
Institute of Science of Technology (KIST), EngKey is just under three-
and-a-half feet high, features a video display for a face, and seems
hell bent on taking all those "teach English in Korea" jobs away from
shiftless American college grads looking to postpone responsibility
for one or two more desperate years. There are currently twenty-nine
such devices, which -- get this -- are actually operated remotely by
teachers in the Philippines. Is this the end result of globalism? Not
quite yet: for the time being, the robots are still too cumbersome to
operate and expensive to justify putting into production. But who
knows? Maybe someday, kids.