You are lying on an operating table, fully conscious, but rendered otherwise insensible, otherwise incapable of movement. A humanoid machine appears at your side, bowing to its task with ceremonial formality. With a brisk sequence of motions, the machine removes a large panel of bone from the rear of your cranium, before carefully laying its fingers, fine and delicate as a spider's legs, on the viscid surface of your brain. You may be experiencing some misgivings about the procedure at this point. Put them aside, if you can.

Is a guaranteed paycheck from the government, with no strings attached, the answer to the relentless rise of automation? The concept might sound far-fetched, but a so-called universal basic income (UBI), is currently one of the most hotly debated policy topics being floated as a means to address income inequality and the disruption that technology poses to the workforce. UBI is being tested in Finland and other international markets, but has received decidedly mixed reactions. Meanwhile, developments in robotics and artificial intelligence have grave implications for the labor force. A report issued this week from consulting firm PwC found that more than a third of U.S. jobs were at risk from automation, upping the ante for policy makers to cushion the blow to workers. Advocates for UBI argue that a guaranteed paycheck could serve as a way to fight poverty and uncertainty in an evolving U.S. economy, and encourage workers to take more risks in the job market if they had some extra money as a cushion.

Uber has suspended its fleet of self-driving cars while it investigates a crash in Arizona involving one of its vehicles. Photographs posted online show the car lying on its side next to another badly damaged vehicle. There were no serious injuries as a result of the incident. The Uber Technologies car – a Volvo SUV – was carrying two engineers in the front and no backseat passengers but it is not yet clear whether the car was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash. The incident is the latest blow for the car-hailing app which has been left reeling by a series of setbacks in recent weeks including the departure of its president, Jeff Jones.

Technology is an intrinsic part of our lives, both personally and professionally. How will the advent of tech affect the future of work? As technological advancement becomes more rapid and more nuanced, we're beginning to see more and more ways for it to play a part in shaping the future of work. From machine learning to AI and robotics, the very fabric of the workforce and the workplace may be on the cusp of a dramatic change. Food and facilities management giant Sodexo may, by the very nature of its work, find itself at the vanguard of that change.

An Uber operated self-driving car was involved in a crash in Arizona, following which the company pulled its self-driving cars from the roads, said a BBC report. In a Twitter post, Uber's Volvo SUV, which was on self-driven mode at the time of the crash, was seen next to another damaged car. The accident took place on Friday, said the report. "There was a person behind the wheel. It is uncertain at this time if they were controlling the vehicle at the time of the collision," said Josie Montenegro, an Uber spokeswoman, according to the report.

AI is having a huge impact on trading, wealth management and asset management. When I first graduated from Stanford, I'd tell people I have a degree in artificial intelligence and they would reply, "so, you are a science fiction writer?" I would then explain that I was an engineer who studied linguistics, cognition, statistics and algorithmic problem-solving. Today, AI is hot topic, and the entire financial industry is trying to find ways to leverage it. After a decade in quantitative finance, I decided to return home to AI and build a new kind of wealth management firm – even different from other robo-advisers.

When he's choosing your music for you, Carl Chery, 37, is in Culver City, California, sitting at his desk in an office with no signage, trying to decide whether Drake and Future's "Jumpman" (jumpman, jumpman, jumpman) has jumped the shark. Or at the gym going for a morning run on the treadmill, thinking about your gym and your treadmill, listening through headphones for changes in tempo and tone: Will this song push you through the pain? Is that one too long on the buildup? "It's hard to describe because it's more of a feeling or instinct," says Chery of his process. He's from Queens, New York, which, despite his residence in Los Angeles for the past four years, is obvious when you hear him talk. "It kind of just happens. You sit there and you start moving and just do it." For a while we thought we could choose our own music. In the wake of the last century we seized the right to take our pick from all of the songs in the world (All of the songs in the world!) and told anyone who didn't like it exactly where they could go.

It's not yet clear whether, with the rise of artificial intelligence, workforce automation will lead to an overall rise or drop in human job creation. That's the argument put forward by University of Geneva professor and tax lawyer Xavier Oberson. Oberson argues that as robots take over more and more jobs – particularly in the industry and service sectors – there will be a rise in unemployment and a corresponding drop in tax and social security receipts by governments all over the world. He believes that imposing a tax on work done by robots could help offset these losses. Logistically, he says this could be managed by creating a "legal entity" representing robots, just as is done today for corporations.

Uber has pulled its self-driving cars from the roads after an accident which left one of the vehicles on its side. Pictures posted online showed the car on its right side on an Arizona street, next to another badly damaged vehicle. The car - a Volvo SUV - was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, on Friday, Uber said. A spokeswoman for the police in Tempe, Arizona said the accident occurred when another vehicle "failed to yield" to the Uber car at a left turn. "There was a person behind the wheel. It is uncertain at this time if they were controlling the vehicle at the time of the collision," spokeswoman Josie Montenegro said.

Training neural network for object recognition (a car with front lights) in action. Improving traffic safety, better health services and environmental benefits – Big Data experts see a wide range of possibilities for advanced image analysis and recognition technology. "Advanced image recognition by computers is the result of a great deal of very demanding work. You have to mimic the way the human brain distinguishes significant from unimportant information," says Eirik Thorsnes at Uni Research in Bergen, Norway. Thorsnes heads a group in the company's Centre for Big Data Analysis focus area, which develops strategies for use of big data for research and commercial purposes.