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A Journey, If You Dare, Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers
From ACM Opinion

A Journey, If You Dare, Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers

Code seems cold and objective, the raw logic of the internet, and Silicon Valley likes it that way.

Don't Fight the Robots. Tax Them.
From ACM Opinion

Don't Fight the Robots. Tax Them.

When Bill Gates floated the idea of imposing a tax on robots a couple of years ago, Lawrence Summers, a former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, called...

The Two Codes Your Kids Need to Know
From ACM Opinion

The Two Codes Your Kids Need to Know

A few years ago, the leaders of the College Board, the folks who administer the SAT college entrance exam, asked themselves a radical question: Of all the skills...

How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent
From ACM Opinion

How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent

The average person would have to spend 76 working days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year. Reading Amazon's terms and...

The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing
From ACM Opinion

The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing

Personal technology was so awful this year that nobody would think you were paranoid if you dug a hole and buried your computer, phone and smart speaker under six...

The Robots Have Descended on Trump Country
From ACM Opinion

The Robots Have Descended on Trump Country

The growing use of work robots and the deployment of artificial intelligence have been most disruptive in just those areas of the country that provided President...

The New Radicalization of the Internet
From ACM Opinion

The New Radicalization of the Internet

Social media has played a key role in the recent rise of violent right-wing extremism in the United States, including three recent incidents—one in which a man...

How Will We Outsmart A.I. Liars?
From ACM Opinion

How Will We Outsmart A.I. Liars?

During the summer before the 2016 presidential election, John Seymour and Philip Tully, two researchers with ZeroFOX, a security company in Baltimore, unveiled...

At China’s Internet Conference, a Darker Side of Tech Emerges
From ACM Opinion

At China’s Internet Conference, a Darker Side of Tech Emerges

Every year at the World Internet Conference, held since 2014 in the photogenic canal town of Wuzhen near Shanghai, companies and government officials have convened ...

Artificial Intelligence Hits the Barrier of Meaning
From ACM Opinion

Artificial Intelligence Hits the Barrier of Meaning

You've probably heard that we're in the midst of an A.I. revolution.

The Internet Will Be the Death of ­s
From ACM Opinion

The Internet Will Be the Death of ­s


No, A.I. Won't Solve the Fake News Problem
From ACM Opinion

No, A.I. Won't Solve the Fake News Problem

In his testimony before Congress this year, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, addressed concerns about the strategically disseminated misinformation...

A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
From ACM Opinion

A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared

More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.

Introducing the Internet Bill of Rights
From ACM Opinion

Introducing the Internet Bill of Rights

Should American citizens get a new Bill of Rights for the internet?

When Reporting on Defcon, Avoid Stereotypes and A.T.M.s
From ACM Opinion

When Reporting on Defcon, Avoid Stereotypes and A.T.M.s

As one of The New York Times's three Surfacing residents, I've grown accustomed to entering unfamiliar places.

We Are Merging With Robots. That's a Good Thing.
From ACM Opinion

We Are Merging With Robots. That's a Good Thing.

Here are some things that are true today:

There Will Never Be an Age of Artificial Intimacy
From ACM Opinion

There Will Never Be an Age of Artificial Intimacy

Years ago I spoke with a 16-year-old girl who was considering the idea of having a computer companion in the future, and she described the upside to me.

How to Combat China's Rise in Tech: Federal Spending, Not Tariffs
From ACM Opinion

How to Combat China's Rise in Tech: Federal Spending, Not Tariffs

At the heart of the trade war between the United States and China lies a profound and unsettling question: Who should control the key technologies that will rule...

Looking Through the Eyes of China's Surveillance State
From ACM Opinion

Looking Through the Eyes of China's Surveillance State

They perch on poles and glare from streetlamps. Some hang barely visible in the ceiling of the subway, and others seem to stretch out on braced necks and peer into...

We Have Reached Peak Screen. Now Revolution Is in the Air.
From ACM Opinion

We Have Reached Peak Screen. Now Revolution Is in the Air.

Smartphones were once the best thing to happen to the tech industry—and for a while, it seemed, to all of us, too.
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