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
The Inner Lives of Robots: An Interview with Filmmaker Alex Garland
Like self-replicating machines, robot movies are taking over Hollywood.
From ACM Opinion
First White House Data Chief Discusses His Top Priorities
Data science is not entirely new to Washington, D.C.—nor is DJ Patil, who was recently named as the U.S.'s first chief data scientist.
From ACM Opinion
How to Restore Trust in American Technology
Last November in the town of Wuzhen, China hosted its first large international summit on Internet governance and cybersecurity.
From ACM Opinion
Nanotech Pioneer Langer Wins Award By Thinking Small
Bioengineer Robert Langer has spent his career looking for the next not-so-big thing.
From ACM News
Search Gives s Superpowers
Machine learning—an area of AI focusing on systems that "learn" from data in order to navigate future similar scenarios—is one of the ways we’ve managed to give...
From ACM Opinion
How the Smartphone Killed Typing—but Started an AI Revolution
Steve Jobs often swam against the tide of prevailing opinion.
From ACM Opinion
The Case For Kill Switches in Military Weaponry
This summer the insurgent group ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Mosul—and along with it, three army divisions' worth of U.S.-supplied equipment from the Iraqi army...
From ACM Opinion
Could Google Glass Ruin Your Memory?
We’ve all done it: We’re at an event, we take a bunch of photos with our phones, we take a selfie and maybe one with a friend, we post all the images online,...
From ACM Opinion
Quantum Chaos: After a Failed Speed Test, the D-Wave Debate Continues
How hard can it be to determine whether a computer works as promised?
From ACM Opinion
Time Travel: Installing an Atomic Clock at 15,000 Feet
A few months ago I went to Cambridge, Mass. to check in with the Event Horizon Telescope crew and found Shep Doeleman, the project leader, fresh off the completion...
From ACM Opinion
So Far, Big Data Is Small Potatoes
Is Big Data going to revolutionize science and help us make a better world? Not based on what it's done so far.
From ACM Opinion
Time Machines Would Run Afoul of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
We've all seen those movies where someone goes back in time and tries to change something (the classic "Grandfather Paradox": what happens if you go back in time...
From ACM Opinion
Warp Drive Research Key to Interstellar Travel
As any avid Star Trek fan can tell you, the eccentric physicist Zefram Cochrane invented the warp-drive engine in the year 2063.
From ACM Opinion
When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking
Many of us now expect our online activities to be recorded and analyzed, but we assume that the physical spaces we inhabit are different.
From ACM Opinion
Asimov's Predictions from 1964: A Brief Report Card
Predictions about technology's future are almost always doomed.
From ACM Opinion
When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking
Many of us now expect our online activities to be recorded and analyzed, but we assume the physical spaces we inhabit are different.
From ACM Opinion
'net Neutrality' Ruling Opens Door For Two-Tiered Internet Market
An "Open Internet" became endangered this week at a time when the U.S. increasingly relies on Internet services to deliver everything from education to entertainment...
From ACM Opinion
Why We Don't Trust Technology Companies
Last October, T-Mobile made an astonishing announcement: from now on, when you travel internationally with a T-Mobile phone, you get free unlimited text messages...
From ACM Opinion
23andme Is Terrifying, But Not For the Reasons the Fda Thinks
If there's a gene for hubris, the 23andMe crew has certainly got it.
From ACM Opinion