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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectComputers And Society
authorSlate
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No More Mr. Nice Robot?
From ACM Opinion

No More Mr. Nice Robot?

Humans might want—and need—robots to be jerks, at least sometimes.

What's It Like to Work In an Amazon Fulfillment Center?
From ACM Opinion

What's It Like to Work In an Amazon Fulfillment Center?

A former employee discusses the floor conditions she experienced at an Amazon fulfillment center, why the quota system there can be so brutal, and what happens...

Congress Wants to Solve Deepfakes by 2020. That Should Worry ­Us
From ACM Opinion

Congress Wants to Solve Deepfakes by 2020. That Should Worry ­Us

Deepfakes are frightening, but so is Congress' rush to regulate them.

In Memory of Lawrence Roberts
From ACM Opinion

In Memory of Lawrence Roberts

Beeeeeeep.

Humans Are Getting More Botlike on Twitter
From ACM Opinion

Humans Are Getting More Botlike on Twitter

We know for sure that Cesar Sayoc, who allegedly targeted high-profile Democrats with mail bombs in late October, isn't a Russian bot.

Editing the Internet's Second Screen
From ACM Opinion

Editing the Internet's Second Screen

The great social media cleanup of the past two years hasn't seemed to leave it much cleaner.

How Sci-Fi Like WarGames Led to Real Policy During the Reagan Administration
From ACM Opinion

How Sci-Fi Like WarGames Led to Real Policy During the Reagan Administration

This year, John Badham's WarGames—one of the movies most beloved by hackers, techies, and tech policy wonks (like me!)—celebrates its 35th anniversary.

The Problem With Terraforming Mars
From ACM Opinion

The Problem With Terraforming Mars

Mars has loomed large throughout human history, our imaginations filling its red vistas with fantastic detail long before our space missions returned even rudimentary...

What Went Wrong With IBM's Watson
From ACM Opinion

What Went Wrong With IBM's Watson

What if artificial intelligence can't cure cancer after all?

Borders in the Cloud
From ACM Opinion

Borders in the Cloud

Amazon may well be one of the companies with the strongest data security in the world.

Why Haven't Reporters Mass-Adopted Secure Tools For Communicating With Sources?
From ACM Opinion

Why Haven't Reporters Mass-Adopted Secure Tools For Communicating With Sources?

In the months since Donald Trump took office, Washington has been leaking like a sieve.

Wikileaks' Attack on ­.s. Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

Wikileaks' Attack on ­.s. Intelligence

Tuesday's WikiLeaks release exposing thousands of detailed documents on CIA hacking tools is an unbridled attack on U.S. intelligence operations with little or...

Why frankenstein is Still Relevant, Almost 200 Years After It Was Published
From ACM Opinion

Why frankenstein is Still Relevant, Almost 200 Years After It Was Published

Can I be totally honest? All I remember about Frankenstein is that Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster. What happens in it?

What Is 'military Artificial Intelligence'? 
From ACM Opinion

What Is 'military Artificial Intelligence'? 

We are in an era of existential fear of technology.

Vulnerability Is the Internet's Original Sin
From ACM Opinion

Vulnerability Is the Internet's Original Sin

On the day (perhaps not long from now) when the entire internet crashes, no one will be able to say that we didn’t see it coming.

Google Is Listening
From ACM Opinion

Google Is Listening

You know the cliché that if you're not paying for the product, you are the product?

The Leaky Myths of Snowden
From ACM Opinion

The Leaky Myths of Snowden

Oliver Stone's Snowden is a bad movie, stuffed with myth, short on drama.

You'll Never Guess This One Crazy Thing Governs Online Speech
From ACM Opinion

You'll Never Guess This One Crazy Thing Governs Online Speech

Early last week, Twitter announced that it would be using new tools to curb hate speech and harassment on its site.

What Virtual Reality Is Good For
From ACM Opinion

What Virtual Reality Is Good For

After years as a punchline, virtual reality is enjoying a renaissance. Venture capitalists plowed $1.2 billion into virtual-reality and augmented-reality startups...

The Lessons of the DNC Hack
From ACM Opinion

The Lessons of the DNC Hack

Just days after Robert Gates became secretary of defense in December 2006, in the middle of George W. Bush’s second term, he found himself so stunned by the volume...
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