A photo of President Obama interacting with a telepresence robot appeared today on the Instagram account of Pete Souza, the chief official White House photographer. According to the image caption, President Obama is speaking with Alice Wong, founder of the Disability Visibility Project. Wong attended the White House reception for the 25th anniversary of the Americans Disabilities Act via Beam Pro.
So no, this isn't the beginning of the end in the battle of human versus machine. This is just a promising piece of personal technology being displayed in a heartwarming act of advocacy. I cede that this is a better use of telepresence robots than me using the Vox NYC bot to chase people around the break room.