Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek. One of humanity's greatest talents is its ability to self-destruct. In Silicon Valley, it's compulsory to call it disruption. You surely know that soon the world will be presided over by robots. They will think for us.

In this special guest feature, Dave O'Flanagan, CEO and co-founder of Boxever, outlines how airlines are leveraging big data and predictive capabilities to transform how they engage with customers. Dave is the CEO and co-founder of Boxever, a data science and omni-channel personalization platform for travel companies. At Boxever, Dave's focus is enabling airlines and travel providers to improve the customer experience, generate revenue and enhance loyalty through one-to-one, personalized marketing. Dave has more than 15 years' experience developing and managing enterprise software in mobile telecoms, travel and cloud. Earlier he was VP of engineering at CUSP, a cloud-based document management startup and was a lead architect at CAPE Technologies.

Until recently, Robyn Ewing was a writer in Hollywood, developing TV scripts and pitching pilots to film studios. Now, she is applying her creative talents toward building the personality of a different type of character - a virtual assistant, animated by artificial intelligence, that interacts with sick patients. Ewing works with engineers on the software program, called Sophie, which can be downloaded to a smartphone. The virtual nurse gently reminds users to check their medication, asks them how they are feeling or if they are in pain, then sends the data to a real doctor. As tech behemoths and a wave of startups double down on virtual assistants that can chat with human beings, writing for AI is becoming a hot job in Silicon Valley.

It takes a lot of work to create a good movie or TV character, and apparently much of the same work is now going into creating the characters behind AI assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Alexa. As this piece in the Washington Post points out, creative workers like poets, fiction writers, and comedians are fast becoming the ones responsible for making these assistants seem human--coming up with everything from human-sounding filler words to jokes to a background story and small personality details. It makes sense: if you want to get people to use these software-based assistants, they should be approachable, dynamic, and have consistent personalities. Throwing in some party tricks--such as Siri's ability to beat box--doesn't hurt, either. But just because your AI assistant has a carefully curated personality doesn't mean it's going to be useful. Making AI conversational interfaces is still very, very hard (though Baidu seems to be doing pretty well with it in China), as it can misunderstand what you're requesting, or may only be able to help in specific situations.

A recent article titled "Why is AI Female?" made the connection that gendered labor, in service professions in particular, is fueling our expectations for gendered AI assistants and service robots. Furthermore, the author argues, this "feminizing -- and sexualizing -- of machines" signals a future with a disproportionate use of feminized VR and robots for a male-dominated sex industry. "Sex with robots is a big leap from asking Siri to set an alarm, but the fact that we've largely equated artificial intelligence with female personalities is worth examining. There are, after all, few sexualized male robots or avatars." Herbert Televox and Mr. Telelux, the early 20th century robots made by Westinghouse, were both male.

Until recently, Robyn Ewing was a writer in Hollywood, developing TV scripts and pitching pilots to film studios. Now she's applying her creative talents towards building the personality of a different type of character – a virtual assistant, animated by artifical intelligence (AI), that interacts with sick patients. Ewing works with engineers on the software program, called Sophie, which can be downloaded to a smartphone. The virtual nurse gently reminds users to check their medication, asks them how they are feeling or if they are in pain, and sends data to a real doctor. As tech behemoths and a wave of start-ups double down on virtual assistants that can chat with human beings, writing for AI is becoming a hot job in Silicon Valley.

It was a weeknight, after dinner, and the baby was in bed. My wife and I were alone--we thought--discussing the sorts of things you might discuss with your spouse and no one else.

Now Virtual Assistant users can enhance the customer experience even further by seamlessly adding Inbenta's Live Chat as an option. For example, when a customer isn't satisfied with an answer they get from the avatar, they can instantly open a conversation with a live agent instead. The new service enables a fluid experience for both customers and for live agents, who will automatically have a detailed history of the conversation. "Our research shows that a growing number of customers actually prefer self-service channels to answer questions, resolve issues or complete transactions. Yet, automated handling often hits limitations when it comes to handling complex queries or'remembering' information previously mentioned in a conversation," says Dan Miller, Opus Research lead analyst. "As intelligent assistant technology evolves; we anticipate the emergence of highly specialized'intelligent advisors' that know when and how to involve a live agent.

When Dennis R. Mortensen hired his founding team members at x.ai, he pitched them by illustrating his vision of a world where everyone has a personal assistant to schedule their meetings. Recognizing the complexity of the challenge, he concluded by saying: "We may die trying." "It's a great setting to hire qualified people," Dennis says, recounting the late days of 2013. "We're working on something that is clearly very hard, to the extent that we might not make it, but it's not impossible." That's the sweet spot, he says.

It's a word that we like to think is constrained to unsavory websites and isn't approved of in polite society. Just as with many other technology developments that can be misused, 3-D printing and robot technology have enabled the construction of, if you will, android sex dolls. There are few legal constraints on this, and we can probably expect see it escalate quite a bit before social forces learn how to deal with it in a positive way. The Particle Debris standout article of the week is from Wired. "The Scarlett Johansson Bot Is the Robotic Future of Objectifying Women."