Jenée Desmond-Harris is online weekly to chat live with readers. Here's an edited transcript of this week's chat. Q. Starcraft slump: My boyfriend is a kind, caring, loving man, and I am mostly satisfied with our relationship. His main hobby is the online game Starcraft, and he spends maybe 10 to 15 hours a week on it, usually a game each evening. The problem is that if he loses a game, it can color his mood for days. There are usually like two to three days a month where he's down in the dumps because of this.

While a certain level of trust is needed for autonomous cars and smart technologies to reach their full potential, these technologies are not infallible – hence why we're supposed to keep our hands on the wheel of self-driving cars and follow traffic laws, even if they contradict our map app instructions. Recognizing the significance of trust in devices – and the dangers when there is too much of it – Erin MacDonald, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, researches whether products can be designed to encourage more appropriate levels of trust among consumers. The researchers simulated a smart speaker interaction to test how altering peoples' moods might influence the extent to which they trust autonomous products. In a paper published last month in The Journal of Mechanical Design, MacDonald and Ting Liao, her former graduate student, examined how altering peoples' moods influenced their trust in a smart speaker. Their results were so surprising, they conducted the experiment a second time and with more participants – but the results didn't change.

We're getting used to sensors finding out what we're doing. Apparently they are now sufficiently sophisticated that they can even tell if I'm sitting up straight (yes Mom – BTW using a camera is almost cheating, you should be able to do this with just an accelerometer and a gyro). But what if I told you that those same IoT sensors can tell how you feel? And now they're even being programmed to change the way you feel! Hang on to your hat because it's about to get worse or better depending on your point of view.

CEO: I heard you invented a device with human intelligence and human emotions. Can I ask it a question? Wally: You'd better leave before you make it cry.