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How Bots Ruined Clicktivism
From ACM Opinion

How Bots Ruined Clicktivism

I recently came across two tweets—or rather, thousands of tweets sharing the same two ideas over and over again.

Safe Artificial Intelligence Requires Cultural Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

Safe Artificial Intelligence Requires Cultural Intelligence

Knowledge, to paraphrase British journalist Miles Kington, is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing there's a norm against putting it in a fruit salad....

How Will Google's Innovation Continue Beyond Its 20th Year?
From ACM Opinion

How Will Google's Innovation Continue Beyond Its 20th Year?

As millions of people came online in the late 1990s they needed help figuring out what each webpage was about, and how to find what they were looking for.

Google Chrome's Biggest Challenge at Age 10 Might Just Be Its Own Success
From ACM Opinion

Google Chrome's Biggest Challenge at Age 10 Might Just Be Its Own Success

Exactly 10 years ago Tuesday, a newly promoted vice president named Sundar Pichai stood before a group of tech reporters in a conference room at Google's Mountain...

Fake America Great Again
From ACM Opinion

Fake America Great Again

Guess what? I just got hold of some embarrassing video footage of Texas senator Ted Cruz singing and gyrating to Tina Turner. His political enemies will have great...

Are We Ready for the Future of Warfare?
From ACM Opinion

Are We Ready for the Future of Warfare?

Warfare has always been about exerting political will.

The Four Ways that Ex-Internet Idealists Explain Where It All Went Wrong
From ACM Opinion

The Four Ways that Ex-Internet Idealists Explain Where It All Went Wrong

A long time ago, in the bad old days of the 2000s, debates about the Internet were dominated by two great tribes: the Optimists and the Pessimists.

Future Elections May Be Swayed by Intelligent, Weaponized Chatbots
From ACM Opinion

Future Elections May Be Swayed by Intelligent, Weaponized Chatbots

The battle against propaganda bots is an arm's race for our democracy. It's one we may be about to lose.

Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism
From ACM Opinion

Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism

A barista gets burned at work, buys first-aid cream at Target, and later that day sees a Facebook ad for the same product.

Who Needs Democracy When You Have Data?
From ACM Opinion

Who Needs Democracy When You Have Data?

In 1955, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story about an experiment in "electronic democracy," in which a single citizen, selected to represent...

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:

Google Tracks You Even If Location History's Off. Here's How to Stop It
From ACM Opinion

Google Tracks You Even If Location History's Off. Here's How to Stop It

If, like most people, you thought Google stopped tracking your location once you turned off Location History in your account settings, you were wrong.

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.

Programmers Need Ethics When Designing the Technologies that Influence People's Lives
From ACM Opinion

Programmers Need Ethics When Designing the Technologies that Influence People's Lives

Computing professionals are on the front lines of almost every aspect of the modern world.

Google's Duplex AI Scares Some People, but I Can't Wait for It to Become a Thing
From ACM Opinion

Google's Duplex AI Scares Some People, but I Can't Wait for It to Become a Thing

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote. That line must have zoomed through 5,000 audience brains...

Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not
From ACM Opinion

Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not

As a Japanese, I grew up watching anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion," which depicts a future in which machines and humans merge into cyborg ecstasy.

Supreme Court Struggles to Define 'Searches' as Technology Changes
From ACM Opinion

Supreme Court Struggles to Define 'Searches' as Technology Changes

What the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means when it protects citizens against an unreasonable search by government agents isn't entirely clear.

How Plausible Are All Those Mission: Impossible Gadgets, Anyway?
From ACM Opinion

How Plausible Are All Those Mission: Impossible Gadgets, Anyway?

It's been 22 years since Tom Cruise infiltrated a CIA vault suspended from a wire in the first Mission: Impossible flick.

How to Tell If You're Talking to a Bot
From ACM Opinion

How to Tell If You're Talking to a Bot

Twitter recently took drastic action as part of an effort to slow the spread of misinformation through its platform, shutting down more than two million automated...

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...
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