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 Opinion
How Nasa's Search For Et Relies on Advanced AI
The biggest knock against sending robots to explore the solar system for signs of life has always been their inability to make intuitive, even creative decisions...
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.
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.
From ACM Opinion
Let's se the Government's Massive Databases to Make Better Policy
Members of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking appear before Congress this week to present their final report (pdf).
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...
From ACM Opinion
Is the Power Grid Getting More Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks?
Two weeks ago it was cyberattacks on the Irish power grid. Last month it was a digital assault on U.S. energy companies, including a nuclear power plant. Back in...
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...
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.
From ACM Opinion
Profile of Claude Shannon, Inventor of Information Theory
Claude Shannon couldn't sit still.
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."
From ACM Opinion
Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
As recent high school graduates prepare for their migration to college in the fall, one item is sure to top most students' shopping wish lists: a laptop computer...
From ACM Opinion
20 Years After Deep Blue: How AI Has Advanced Since Conquering Chess
Twenty years ago IBM's Deep Blue computer stunned the world by becoming the first machine to beat a reigning world chess champion in a six-game match.
From ACM Opinion
Ghost in the Sell: Hollywood's Mischievous Vision of AI
Watch enough science fiction movies and you'll probably come to the conclusion that humans are living on borrowed time.
From ACM Opinion
The ltimate Cure For the Fake-News Epidemic Will Be More Skeptical Readers
"Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President." "FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead of Apparent Murder-Suicide." "Rush Reveals...
From ACM Opinion
Darpa's Biotech Chief Says 2017 Will 'blow Our Minds'
The Pentagon's research and development division, DARPA—the creative force behind the internet and GPS—retooled itself three years ago to create a new office dedicated...
From ACM Opinion
Trump's First 100 Days: Technology, Privacy and Intelligence
President-elect Donald Trump's views on technology and tech policy were not prominent campaign features on his contentious path to the White House.
From ACM Opinion
Richard Dawkins and Other Prominent Scientists React to Trump's Win
This week the U.S. elected businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump as its 45th president. As Scientific American has reported in the run-up to the election...
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...
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.
From ACM Opinion