Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2021
From ACM Opinion
Self-Driving Cars Might Never Be Able to Drive Themselves
Producing truly autonomous vehicles requires a fundamental shift in current approaches.
From ACM Opinion
For Companies That Use ML, Labeled Data Is the Key Differentiator
Any company that is considering using machine learning cannot overlook one technical choice: supervised or unsupervised learning.
From ACM Opinion
Should Alexa Read Our Moods?
Companies should be barred from analyzing what people say and how they sound to recommend products or personalize advertising messages.
From ACM Opinion
Shoshana Zuboff: Why You Should Care About Privacy
The author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism talks about why people should pay attention to how big tech companies are using their information.
From ACM Opinion
Caution Ahead: Navigating Risks to Freedoms Posed by AI
NSCAI commissioners and PCLOB members urge a task force to examine the challenges of using AI systems across federal agencies.
From ACM Opinion
How to Be Responsible in AI Publication
A white paper from Partnership on AI advises on navigating the risks of AI research and responsible publication.
From ACM Opinion
Data Scientists' Important Role in Defeating COVID Vaccine Skepticism
Without a basic understanding of data measures and how they're computed, data-driven vaccine safety and effectiveness messages can become meaningless sound bites.
From ACM Opinion
Can Machines Control Our Brains?
Advances in brain-computer interface technology are impressive, but not close to anything resembling mind control.
From ACM Opinion
'Clearly AI Is Going to Win'
Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman discusses listening to science, avoiding system noise, and the inevitability of AI over human intelligence.
From ACM Opinion
European AI Needs Strategic Leadership, Not Overregulation
EU regulation of AI could limit the use cases and innovation and put the EU in a technologically inferior position globally.
From ACM Opinion
Defining a Role for AI Ethics in National Security
Mariarosaria Taddeo, an associate professor and senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute and Dstl Ethics Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, discusses two recent reports from the U.K. and the U.S. on using AI …
From ACM Opinion
Stop the Emerging AI Cold War
Proliferating military artificial intelligence will leave the world less safe—so we must focus on ethics and global cooperation, argues Denise Garcia, vice-chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control.
From ACM Opinion
Charlie Marcus Knows That Quantum Facts Aren't Complicated
The secret to making a qubit for future quantum computers might depend on knowing how to tie knots in unusual materials, argues quantum physicist Charlie Marcus.
From ACM Opinion
Understanding the Differences Between Biological and Computer Vision
Harvard Medical University Professor Gabriel Kreiman provides an account of how humans and animals process visual data and how far techno come toward replicating these functions in computers.
From ACM Opinion
Quantifying Uncertainty in Deep Learning
Aalto University Professor Arno Solin discusses how to improve deep learning uncertainty with doctoral student Lassi Meronen.
From ACM Opinion
Cooperative AI: Machines Must Learn to Find Common Ground
To help humanity solve fundamental problems of cooperation, scientists need to reconceive artificial intelligence as deeply social.
From ACM Opinion
Professor Advocates Taking AI Research Back to Its Roots
To build a general artificial intelligence, we may need to know more about our own minds, argues computer scientist Melanie Mitchell.
From ACM Opinion
AI Drives Crossword-Solving Program to Tournament Victory
Plagued by unifinished crossword puzzles? Matt Ginsberg, a pro crossword writer and AI scientist, wrote a program that solves crosswords.
From ACM Opinion
AI May Have a Lot to Learn From Children
Exploratory learning, the kind that is exhibited by children, might better inform AI development than the habitual learning processes employed by adults, according to a UC Berkeley AI Research group member Alison Gopnik.
From Communications of the ACM
Trustworthy Scientific Computing
Addressing the trust issues underlying the current limits on data sharing.
From Communications of the ACM
Software Professionals, Malpractice Law, and Codes of Ethics
In pursuit of professional status for computing professionals.
From Communications of the ACM
CS Unplugged or Coding Classes?
Perhaps a more appropriate question is 'Why not both'?
From Communications of the ACM
Understanding Law and the Rule of Law: A Plea to Augment CS Curricula
Why law matters for computer scientists and other folk.
From Communications of the ACM
Let's Be Honest
Seeking to rectify the two mutually exclusive ways of comparing computational power — encoding and simulation.
From Communications of the ACM
The 10 Best Practices for Remote Software Engineering
Focusing on the human element of remote software engineer productivity.