If the humans ain't broke, don't replace them with robots. Otherwise, your whole restaurant will itself be -- you guessed it -- broke. In a rather damning display of the limitations of technology, a fleet of useless robots meant to replace human servers have caused the demise of two restaurants in China. As it turns out, the answer to the question, "What can't robots do?" is actually, "a lot." Initially, Chinese restaurant chain Heweilai bought a whole staff's worth of automatons to wait on its patrons in three locations.

During my last interview I had a great talk with Daniel McDuff. Daniel's research is at the intersection of psychology and computer science. He is interested in designing hardware and algorithms for sensing human behavior at scale, and in building technologies that make life better. Applications of behavior sensing that he is most excited about are in: understanding mental health, improving online learning and designing new connected devices (IoT). Listen to more about why it is important to collect data from much larger scales and help computers read our emotional state. Key Learning Points: 1. Understanding the impact, intersection, and meaning of Psychology and Computer Science 2. Facial Expression Recognition 3. How to define Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning 4. Applications of behavior sensing with Online Learning, Health, and Connected Devices 5. Visual Wearable sensors and heart health 6. The impact of education and learning 7. How to build computers to measure phycology, our reactions, emotions, etc 8. Daniel is building and utilizing scalable computer vision and machine learning tools to enable the automated recognition and analysis of emotions and physiology. He is currently Director of Research at Affectiva, a post-doctoral research affiliate at the MIT Media Lab and a visiting scientist at Brigham and Womens Hospital. At Affectiva Daniel is building state-of-the-art facial expression recognition software and leading analysis of the world's largest database of human emotion responses. Daniel completed his PhD in the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab in 2014 and has a B.A. and Masters from Cambridge University. His work has received nominations and awards from Popular Science magazine as one of the top inventions in 2011, South-by-South-West Interactive (SXSWi), The Webby Awards, ESOMAR, the Center for Integrated Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) and several IEEE conferences. His work has been reported in many publications including The Times, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, New Scientist and Forbes magazine. Daniel has been named a 2015 WIRED Innovation Fellow.

A week later, she was accidentally activated during testing, and within minutes had succumbed to a "kush" induced freakout. Tay is now offline, and her account made private, much like any parent will do when their teenager gets into trouble on the internet. What went wrong with Tay? No one should find it surprising that releasing a machine learning chatbot on social media, in the guise of a teenage girl no less, would result in a wave of interactions designed to test the limits of the technology -- and anyone who has ever spoken to Siri, Cortana or any other virtual assistant knows that one of the first tests involves saying the most profane statements you can think of. Microsoft was certainly aware of this; their VA, Cortana, is often subject to sexual harassment, and so she has been designed to fight back.

Useless robot waiters are being blamed for the closure of several restaurants in China, after an investment by the owners in automated serving staff turned out to be a financial disaster. According to a translated report in the Worker's Daily -- which might have good reason to undermine robot labour, so perhaps be a bit cynical about it -- a restaurant chain has closed two branches staffed in part by 7,000 ( 4,900) robot servants, with a third surviving the cut; but replacing the underperforming automatons with rubbish old last-generation human service staff. Despite what we may have been told by the pro-robot agenda being pushed by the media, staff weren't impressed, telling the paper: "The robots weren't able to carry soup or other food steady and they would frequently break down. The boss has decided never to use them again." Which is odd, as they seem to be able to weld cars together and put windscreens into them by themselves, surely harder tasks than giving a man a cup of tea?

HealthBox retails for 400 and comes with connected wrist band, weight scale and heart rate monitor devices.

At a time when the banking industry needs to become increasingly focused on creating better customer experiences, the importance of distributing personalized communications that provide real value has never been greater. Artificial intelligence (AI) can help make this possible -- both automatically and at scale. The banking industry is undergoing a major transformation. Evolving regulatory requirements, more demanding customers, and greater competition from new, non-traditional players are among the catalysts driving change. Collectively, these and other factors are forcing banks and credit unions to rethink their business and how they engage with consumers.

"You have to begin to lose your memory, if only bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all." -- Luis Buñuel Portolés, Filmmaker Every year, hundreds of millions of people experience the pain of a failing memory. The reasons are many: traumatic brain injury, which haunts a disturbingly high number of veterans and football players; stroke or Alzheimer's disease, which often plagues the elderly; or even normal brain aging, which inevitably touches us all. Memory loss seems to be inescapable. But one maverick neuroscientist is working hard on an electronic cure.

Since the first computer-managed elements entered service in a General Motors auto manufacturing plant in 1961, almost every service and manufacturing industry in the world has benefited from increased automation provided -- to a greater or lesser degree -- by robotics. And, as industries become more deeply interconnected as a result of the demands of globalization and ubiquitous connectivity, so the very nature of robots will also evolve. However, increased proliferation of robots will bring as many new or accentuated risks as benefits, heightening the need for control over our creations. Today, there are many different types of robots in commercial and private use, with form factors varying considerably from the static to the fully mobile, from the microscopic to the truly huge and from the single function-specific design to the multi-function, modular types popularised by science fiction. Risks and threats posed by robots will also vary considerably.

As if fast food couldn't get any faster, a new integration between Slack and Taco Bell is proving the impossible to be quite possible. Last week, the express joint announced a new partnership with the workplace messenger system, which allows taco fans to order menu items by way of an artificial intelligence powered customer service system named TacoBot. You'll be able to ask and even pay for your favorite menu items through Slack, all with via a "witty personality you'd expect from Taco Bell." The latest in a long list of integrations the IM system has introduced in the last several months, this one might be the most delicious, limited as it may be. While the Taco Bell menu available on Slack may not be quite as extensive as the one in the actual fast food restaurant, Lawrence Kim, Taco Bell's director of digital innovation, says this is just the beginning.

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.