Yesterday I wrote about an absurd encounter with telepresence robots. But then today I had an intriguing conversation about those contraptions.
A friend was telling me that an artist she knew was saying to people at this conference that they should attend the conference art show this evening. One of the people approached by this artist was “present” via one of those mobile telepresence robots.
As it happens, the gallery housing the art show is across the street from the conference center. So they ended up having a conversation about whether the robot would be capable of crossing the street to get to the gallery. Ostensibly this points to a limitation of the telepresence robots.
But suppose, I told my friend, that there were telepresence robots everywhere — much as we currently have electrical outlets everywhere. In that case, being “present” via telepresence robot would be a sort of superpower.
The telepresent person could instantly jump from the conference center to the gallery. In fact, they could instantly jump from anywhere to anywhere else.
It still wouldn’t be the same as really being there, but it might lead to some interesting new possibilities that we haven’t yet thought of.
Or: imagine everyone’s own contact lenses were a means of telepresence. Anyone could stand in anyone else’s shoes.
Or: if the telepresence was following you, you could watch yourself act in third person. Crazy.
Indeed. I recently wrote about that possibility in this post.
Fascinating. Fantastic blog!
Thanks!! 🙂