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
Supreme Court Skeptical of Microsoft's Ireland E-Mail Privacy Claims
It is not unusual for tech companies to spar with law enforcement over access to customer data. Most cases, however, do not go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court...
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Can Make Valentine's Day Much, Much Better
Every February I agonize over the Valentine's Day Dilemma. How can I show my girlfriend, whom I'll call Emily, how much I love her?
From ACM Opinion
What China's Frightening Digital Strategy Portends For America's Future
If we were given the capacity to track and feel one another's emotions, would we behave better?
From ACM Opinion
For AI to Get Creative, It Must Learn the Rules, Then How to Break 'em
American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Every artist was first an amateur." He likely never thought those words would apply to machines.
From ACM Opinion
I Am a Roboticist in a Cheese Factory
Most people think about robots as autonomous machines guided by artificial intelligence.
From ACM Opinion
Can Robots Tighten the Bolts on a Rickety Caregiver Sector?
In 2015 I was watching a dress rehearsal for a play about love, loss and aging. In a climactic scene, the lead actress gesticulated and shouted, while her co-star...
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