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Melania Trump enters the White House East Room with a humanoid robot named Figure 03.

US First Lady Melania Trump enters the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC with a humanoid robot named Figure 03 during the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit on March 25, 2026.

(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Sanders Spurns Melania Trump's Vision of Robots 'Replacing Teachers'

"We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve."

US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday rejected First Lady Melania Trump's vision of a near-future in which artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots do the work of human school teachers, arguing that society should instead do better by its human educators.

The wife of President Donald Trump entered Wednesday's gathering of the Global First Ladies Alliance accompanied by Figure 03, an AI-powered "general purpose humanoid robot" developed by the Sunnyvale, California-based company Figure.

“The future of AI is personified," Trump told attendees, who included Brigitte Macron of France, Sara Netanyahu of Israel, and Olena Zelenska of Ukraine. “It will be formed in the shape of humans. Very soon artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility.”

“Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato," she said. “Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.”

Responding to Trump's remarks, Sanders (I-Vt.) said Friday on social media: "Call me a radical, but NO."

"We should not be replacing teachers in America with robots," the senator added. "We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve."

Trump and Macron also warned about the dangers technology poses to children in remarks that came the same week that a New Mexico jury ordered tech titan Meta to pay a $375 million penalty for endangering youth and jurors in a landmark social media addiction trial found that Meta and YouTube harmed a child user of their platforms.

The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom—who is believed to be a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination—also slapped down the idea of robot teachers, as did ordinary social media users.

"They want to replace human beings. Where will we work? How do we make money?" asked one X account with tens of thousands of followers. "No one wants this. We did not ask for it. Fuck all of this shit."

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