He imagines with our crazy schedules many of us may find it useful to, for example, send the robot to the office party, while you’re home with the kids.

“Right now we would consider it really weird and rude and inappropriate, but you could imagine that maybe after a while that might be kind of OK,” Goldberg says. “You’re still there, right? You’re spending time, but you’re sitting in your pajamas at your desk.”

He says just this year he saw several commercial companies like Anybots open up to sell telepresence robots. According to Goldberg, the technology has finally reached the point where it’s affordable, and with our busy lives, there’s a growing need to do more, be in more places, see more people.

However, there’s a downside too: We may soon be in a world where there are no more excuses for not showing up.