Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
How Relying on Algorithms and Bots Can Be Really, Really Dangerous
So you can’t wait for a self-driving car to take away the drudgery of driving? Me neither! But consider this scenario, recently posed by neuroscientist Gary Marcus...
From ACM Opinion
Why All Reporters (not Just J-School Students) Should Learn to Fly Drones
These days the future of journalism may look cloudy. But one thing about the future of the business is clear, according to ABC News. It will be full of drones.
From ACM Opinion
Why It's Time For Our Devices to nderstand What We Mean, Not Just What We Say
It wasn’t just cost and Moore’s law. The graphical user interface—now known as the GUI ("gooey")—is what really made computing widespread, personal and ubiquitous...
From ACM Opinion
Homunculism
According to Wikipedia, Ray Kurzweil is an "American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google. Aside from futurology, he is involved in...
From ACM Opinion
Computer Interfaces: Tech's Next Great Frontier
Consider the tongue. It's sensitive yet muscular, packed with taste buds and nerves, and without its acrobatic ability humans wouldn’t be able to eat or talk. It's...
From ACM Opinion
The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain
The Obama administration is planning a multiyear research effort to produce an "activity map" that would show in unprecedented detail the workings of the human,...
From ACM Opinion
Why Mapping the Human Brain Matters
It turns out that President Barack Obama’s head-scratching mention of a project to map the human brain in his most recent State of the Union speech was more than...
From ACM Opinion
Can Machines Learn Morality?
When John Brennan, President Obama's choice to be the next head of the CIA, appeared before a Senate committee yesterday, one question supplanted all others at...
From ACM Opinion
How to Build the Perfect Gaming Pc For 2013–and Beyond
There's little doubt that PC gaming is undergoing a renaissance at the moment.
From ACM Opinion
Talking, Walking Objects
Meeting Simon for the first time was one of the most sublime experiences I've had. With every coy head nod, casual hand wave and deep eye gaze, I felt he already...
From ACM Opinion
What Makes a Mind? Kurzweil and Google May Be Surprised
After writing about Ray Kurzweil’s ambitious plan to create a super-intelligent personal assistant in his new job at Google (see "Ray Kurzweil Plans to Create a...
From ACM Opinion
What the Baseball Hall of Fame Decision Could Mean For the Singularity
If you buy into Ray Kurzweil's vision of the Singularity, then the future is a marvelous place where we’re all physically and mentally enhanced and living longer...
From ACM Opinion
The Small Business of 2063
Our world is changing faster than ever and, in recent years, a number of transformative technologies have moved from science fiction and the research and development...
From ACM Opinion
Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs
It's hard to believe you'd have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.
From ACM Opinion
By Hiring Kurzweil, Google Just Killed the Singularity
Late last Friday, Google announced a jaw-dropping hire: Ray Kurzweil will join the company as a Director of Engineering. Has the world’s brainiest tech company"rapture...
From ACM Opinion
Red Pill, Blue Pill: Is the niverse Just a Giant Computer Simulation?
I've started making my way (skeptically) through Ray Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind, and at the recommendation of a friend, I've also started keeping tabs on ...
From ACM Opinion
This Real-Life Pixar Lamp Cutely Refuses to Let You Turn It Off
Design-class projects have come a long way. That's the only conclusion I can draw from this brilliant video of a robotic desk lamp that squeaks, swivels, and mugs...
From ACM Opinion
How Design Can Help Voice Interaction Go Big
Recently there's been a lot of comparison between Apple's Siri and Google's Voice Search. Microsoft's voice breakthroughs have also captured headlines.
From ACM Opinion