Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Careers
Tom Lehrer at 90: A Life of Scientific Satire
In 1959, the mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer—who turns 90 this month—performed what he characteristically called a "completely pointless" scientific song...
From ACM Opinion
Science Fiction When the Future Is Now
AlphaGo, fake news, cyberwar: 2017 has felt science-fictional in the here and now. Space settlement and sea-steading seem just around the bend; so, at times, do...
From ACM Opinion
Q&a: The AI Composer
Computer scientist Luc Steels uses artificial intelligence to explore the origins and evolution of language.
From ACM Opinion
The Worlds of H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) occupies a singular place in science and culture.
From ACM Opinion
The Science That Fed Frankenstein
In 1816, a teenager began to compose what many view as the first true work of science fiction—and unleashed one of the most subversive attacks on modern science...
From ACM Opinion
Lust and the Turing Test
By and large, we watch movies to be entertained, not to be provoked into deep thought. Occasionally, a film does both.
From ACM Opinion
Space-Time Visionary
Thanks to theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, real science is embedded in Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar, in which explorers seek a new home for humankind.
From ACM Opinion
Take a Virtual Voyage Into Darwin's Library
In his celebrated journey around the world on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836, Charles Darwin collected a plethora of information on the geology, animals, plants...
From ACM Opinion