Looking for a way to ease yourself into 2017? Then check out our 10 must-read articles to help kick-start your brain. The bells are barely over, and the new year party is still fresh in your mind. But it's time to get back to work, and we want to help you start 2017 right. We've selected some top articles from 2016 to ease you in, and sharpen your brain on your first day back.

For machine learning to become more intelligent it needs data. The more that is fed into self-learning systems, the quicker they are able to take on knowledge and apply it to different situations. With this in mind, Google now wants your help to develop its technology and has released a series of AI experiments that (almost anyone) can use. "AI Experiments is a showcase for simple experiments that let anyone play with this technology in hands-on ways, through pictures, drawings, language, music, and more," the company says. By playing the games Google has created and published, the machine learning powering them is able to become more intelligent.

My deep concerns over the impact that Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, and over-automation will eventually have on society have led me to write several thought-provoking articles to help raise awareness while course correction is still possible. Whichever way the future unfolds, we do have some time in hand. The kind of mass scale automation that may eventually come about is still 50-100 years away, most likely. Still, there is a very high probability that massive degrees of automation WILL eventually come about. Huge displacement of workers WILL take place due to such automation.

Today, Facebook has apologised for a Safety Check error that led to people around the world being texted in the wake of the Sunday's bombing in Lahore, Japan's Hitomi X-ray satellite has lost communication with Earth, Microsoft has issued a formal explanation for the actions of its short-lived machine learning chatbot, Tay, and more. Get WIRED Awake sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning by 8am. Click here to sign up to the WIRED Awake newsletter. In the wake of a suicide bombing that left at least 69 people dead in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday, Facebook has apologised for an error in its Safety Check disaster response system that saw people around the world being asked to check in as safe (The Guardian). Users in areas as geographically diverse as Australia, Egypt and Belgium received text messages asking if they'd been affected by the explosion, without any information on where the incident had occurred.