Sure, the robot thing is cool, but the more interesting part is the brunt of the article. That snippet from Curtis Faith is very thought provoking.
I have doubts about whether or not it'll actually work without top-down coordination. At the very least, as long as it's cheap and easy for people to do stuff they want (e.g. drive somewhere), then they're free to do so. That won't change, unless it becomes not cheap anymore (could be any kind of not-cheap-state-of-being: gas tax, environmental restrictions, whatever).
>Since I think we should cut unnecessary travel, I decided to stay here in Singapore and use a telepresence robot instead of flying to California.
Telepresence robots are useful, but I don't see the advantage of giving a speech with one over just using video chat as many others have done. Where Anybot might be useful is for the mingling before and after a speech.
Its not for the novelty. He is trying to support sustainable living and one of the things that the Anybot does is eliminate his usage of airplanes and fossil fuel burning.
On the flip side I don't think he would actually save any resources because of the things that was used to create the Anybot.
