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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectTheory
authorScientific American
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How Technology Can Make Valentine's Day Much, Much Better
From ACM Opinion

How Technology Can Make Valentine's Day Much, Much Better

Every February I agonize over the Valentine's Day Dilemma. How can I show my girlfriend, whom I'll call Emily, how much I love her?

For AI to Get Creative, It Must Learn the Rules, Then How to Break 'em
From ACM Opinion

For AI to Get Creative, It Must Learn the Rules, Then How to Break 'em

American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Every artist was first an amateur." He likely never thought those words would apply to machines.

I Am a Roboticist in a Cheese Factory
From ACM Opinion

I Am a Roboticist in a Cheese Factory

Most people think about robots as autonomous machines guided by artificial intelligence.

Beyond Bitcoin: How Technology Could Help Fix Our Broken Financial System
From ACM Opinion

Beyond Bitcoin: How Technology Could Help Fix Our Broken Financial System

On a spring day more than 5,000 years ago in the Mesopotamian city of Ur, a foreign merchant sold his wares in exchange for a large bundle of silver.

Do We Need Brain Implants to Keep ­p with Robots?
From ACM Opinion

Do We Need Brain Implants to Keep ­p with Robots?

Pundits have been fretting a lot lately about robots leaving humans behind, taking our jobs and possibly a lot more, as in The Matrix and Terminator films.

What We Know About the Climate Change-Hurricane Connection
From ACM Opinion

What We Know About the Climate Change-Hurricane Connection

With Texas just beginning to recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey and the Southeastern U.S. preparing for Hurricane Irma's iminent arrival, people...

Magical Technologies Just Over the Horizon
From ACM Opinion

Magical Technologies Just Over the Horizon

We the people have always been helplessly drawn to the concept of magic: the notion that you can will something to happen by wiggling your nose, speaking special...

Preserving the Right to Cognitive Liberty
From ACM Opinion

Preserving the Right to Cognitive Liberty

The idea of the human mind as the domain of absolute protection from external intrusion has persisted for centuries.

Is Anyone Home? A Way to Find Out If AI Has Become Self-Aware
From ACM Opinion

Is Anyone Home? A Way to Find Out If AI Has Become Self-Aware

Every moment of your waking life and whenever you dream, you have the distinct inner feeling of being "you."

Why Robots Must Learn to Tell ­S 'no'
From ACM Opinion

Why Robots Must Learn to Tell ­S 'no'

HAL 9000, the sentient computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, offers an ominous glimpse of a future in which machines endowed with artificial intelligence reject human...

E-Voting Refuses to Die Even Though It's Neither Secure Nor Secret
From ACM Opinion

E-Voting Refuses to Die Even Though It's Neither Secure Nor Secret

In theory, using the internet or e-mail to vote for the U.S. president sounds like a good idea.

Grading the Presidential Candidates on Science
From ACM Opinion

Grading the Presidential Candidates on Science

Two weeks ago, Scientific American asked for your help in grading the presidential candidates on their answers to 20 questions about various aspects of scientific...

Americans Are Wary About Body-Enhancement Technologies
From ACM Opinion

Americans Are Wary About Body-Enhancement Technologies

Emerging technologies that draw from biomedical technology, nanotechnology, information technology and other fields are developing at a rapid pace and may lead...

Rise of the Ag-Bots Will Not Sow Seeds of ­nemployment
From ACM Opinion

Rise of the Ag-Bots Will Not Sow Seeds of ­nemployment

Larry Stap's fifth-generation family dairy farm has come a long way since his great grandfather established it in Lynden, Wash., in 1910.

How the Computer Beat the Go Player
From ACM Opinion

How the Computer Beat the Go Player

The victory in March of the computer program AlphaGo over one of the world's top handful of go players marks the highest accomplishment to date for the burgeoning...

Can Starshot Work?
From ACM Opinion

Can Starshot Work?

A couple of weeks ago the world heard about the most seriously funded (and perhaps the most serious) effort yet for starting us on the pathway to interstellar travel...

Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?
From ACM Opinion

Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?

Valentine's Day was a bummer in Mountain View, Calif. For the first time, one of Google's self-driving cars, a modified Lexus SUV, caused a crash.

Why We Love the Games That Enrage ­S Most
From ACM Opinion

Why We Love the Games That Enrage ­S Most

One afternoon last fall a Reddit user with the handle "FranktheShank1" was enjoying a new video game on his PlayStation 4.

The Embarrassing, Destructive Fight Over Biotech's Big Breakthrough
From ACM Opinion

The Embarrassing, Destructive Fight Over Biotech's Big Breakthrough

A defining moment in modern biology occurred on July 24, 1978, when biotechnology pioneer Robert Swanson, who had recently co-founded Genentech, brought two young...

When Will We Be Able to Vote Online?
From ACM Opinion

When Will We Be Able to Vote Online?

Sooner or later everything seems to go online. Newspapers. TV. Radio. Shopping. Banking. Dating.
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