{"id":6639,"date":"2026-07-26T09:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestusamoverss.com\/?p=6639"},"modified":"2026-07-26T09:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:07:11","slug":"meet-the-robots-programmed-by-kids-to-speak-their-indigenous-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestusamoverss.com\/?p=6639","title":{"rendered":"Meet the robots programmed by kids to speak their Indigenous languages"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. \u2014 The idea came to Danielle Boyer in a toy store. The inspiration? It was Tickle Me Elmo.<\/p>

Read more France and Spain fires force more than 200,000 to flee homes<\/a><\/p>

“Whenever you’d press his belly, he would talk, and he would teach you things,” she said. “There are toys that teach us in English, but there aren’t toys that teach us . And I wanted that to be different.”<\/p>

includes the Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe languages. Exact estimates vary, but there are fewer than 10,000 people in the U.S. who speak . That number is around 25,000 in Canada. Some Native languages have just a few dozen fluent speakers, while others have none.<\/p>\n

Boyer has seen how quickly language loss can happen. Her grandmother speaks , but she is one of the last fluent speakers of their dialect.<\/p>

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\"Ramona<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
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Education <\/h3>\n

‘We survived, we are resilient’: Remembering U.S. Indian boarding schools<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

“It is devastating to feel like your language could be lost,” said Boyer, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. “You lose your culture, you lose a way to describe who you are.”<\/p>

U.S. Indian boarding schools played a major role in the loss of Indigenous languages. Children separated from their families were taught, sometimes violently, not to speak their native tongues, and many did not pass them on to their children.<\/p>

Today, some Native youth are learning their languages in schools. But Boyer said many of them still aren’t invested. “They see it as another homework assignment.”<\/p>\n

That’s why she invented the SkoBot. It’s a customizable toy robot designed to get Indigenous children excited to learn their languages.<\/p>

“I can say ‘Hey SkoBot, what is bear?’ And it will say, ‘Bear is ,’ and it’ll repeat it, right? So I can say, ‘What is crane?’ It’ll say, ‘Crane is .'”<\/p>

SkoBots use a form of artificial intelligence to speak Indigenous languages, and they’re small enough to mount on the user’s shoulder. They sort of resemble mini R2-D2 droids, from , except these robots are designed to look like woodland creatures and decorated in Native American florals.<\/p>\n\n

Through a nonprofit she started when she was 18, Boyer, now 25, has mentored hundreds of Native American children across the country, teaching them to build SkoBots of their own. One of them is 12-year-old Holden Hoy in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.<\/p>

“I was already a big fan of robotics and how they work, how you can bring inanimate objects to life,” he said. “And I’m Ojibwe, and so I’ve always wanted to save the Ojibwe language.”<\/p>

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National <\/h3>\n

The race to save Indigenous languages<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Hoy, a rising seventh grader, showed off his design at an end of the year science fair at his school, JKL Bahweting Anishinaabe School in Sault Ste. Marie. Like Boyer, he is a member of the Sault Tribe.<\/p>

He programmed his SkoBot to answer three questions ahead of his presentation. One of them was, “What’s your name,” to which the robot would respond in Hoy’s voice: “, Hello. , . I was built by Holden Hoy. I will not gain sentience and take over the world. Or will I?”<\/p>

Read more One dead, several injured after vehicle plows through crowd at Berlin Pride event<\/a><\/p>

Hoy named his SkoBot , which means Bigfoot in . In Ojibwe culture, Bigfoot represents honesty, one of seven sacred teachings.<\/p>

His classmates and their parents stopped by his booth to see in action. Boyer was there too, helping Hoy with his presentation.<\/p>

“I’m very happy that people are actually coming to this booth,” Hoy said. “I’m happy that they are learning things, and I’m really happy that I’m part of the Ojibwe.”<\/p>

has one eye, a sensor that detects movement and lets it know to start listening.<\/p>\n

“Basically when it hears that one trigger word, it then plays a prerecorded audio file. So there isn’t synthetic speech, there isn’t any generative AI,” said Boyer. “It’s simply listening to what you’re saying, identifying it and playing that already exist.”<\/p>

That means the SkoBots will never make things up, often called AI hallucinations. Hoy said it’s important not to use generative AI. “AI tends to falsify things a lot, not get things from trustworthy sources.”<\/p>\n

Boyer’s goal isn’t to replace interactions with real language speakers. Instead, it’s to get kids interested in not only their languages, but in subjects like science, math and engineering as well. That includes getting them to think about how to use AI ethically.<\/p>

“Artificial intelligence, especially when it’s not created by Indigenous people, stands to do a lot of harm to our communities,” she said. “When you are putting accurate information into these models \u2026 you’re giving away sacred information to companies that don’t have our best interests at heart.”<\/p>

And as chatbots have become more popular, Boyer said some people have turned to them to help them learn their languages. She’s even seen large language models like ChatGPT invent fake words in which she said is dangerous”If we’re not learning our language correctly, we shouldn’t learn it at all.”<\/p>

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\"Mural<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
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America In Pursuit <\/h3>\n

Once designed to strip Native students of culture, this school now safeguards it<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Jocelyn Hoy is Holden’s mom. She’s excited that her son is not only exposed to their culture, but he’s eager to know more. She said he’s even been teaching her new things.<\/p>

“As someone who, at a time in my life, did not want to be identified as Native American \u2026 now as an adult, I cannot wait to learn more, and I think the SkoBots are going to help me and so many kids \u2014 so many people in general \u2014 learn their heritage and who they are.”<\/p>

Holden Hoy said that heritage and the language are inseparable: “The language is the culture!”<\/p>

He added, “It is important to protect it, because it’s some people’s way of life. Generation after generation is based around this culture.”<\/p>

Read more Biden ghostwriter tapes to be released<\/a><\/p>

<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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