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
Smartphones Are Weapons of Mass Manipulation, and This Guy Is Declaring War on Them
If, like an ever-growing majority of people in the U.S., you own a smartphone, you might have the sense that apps in the age of the pocket-sized computer are designed...
From ACM Opinion
Oculus Chief Scientist Speaks About Virtual Reality in the Lab and on Your Face
While many of us are impatient with virtual reality—the best headsets are still too expensive, they need to be tethered to beefy computers, and there isn't all...
From ACM Opinion
The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions
We are surrounded by hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence and robotics—hysteria about how powerful they will become, how quickly, and what they...
From ACM Opinion
China's AI Awakening
On a tropical island that marks the southern tip of China, a computer program called Lengpudashi is playing one-on-one poker against a dozen people at once, and...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Killer Robots; Bias Is the Real AI Danger
Google's AI chief isn't fretting about super-intelligent killer robots. Instead, John Giannandrea is concerned about the danger that may be lurking inside the machine...
From ACM Opinion
Why Google's AI Can Write Beautiful Songs but Still Can't Tell a Joke
Creating noodling piano tunes and endless configurations of cat drawings with AI may not sound like an obvious project for Google, but it makes a lot of sense to...
From ACM Opinion
The Myth of the Skills Gap
The contention that America's workers lack the skills employers demand is an article of faith among analysts, politicians, and pundits of every stripe, from conservative...
From ACM Opinion
The Enduring Legacy of Zork
In 1977, four recent MIT graduates who'd met at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science used the lab's PDP-10 mainframe to develop a computer game that captivated...
From ACM Opinion
The President of Search Giant Baidu Has Global Plans
Google and Facebook are household names around the world. Baidu? Not yet. Ya-Qin Zhang, president of China's leading search business, says Chinese companies can...
From ACM Opinion
A Reality Check For Ibm's AI Ambitions
Paul Tang was with his wife in the hospital just after her knee replacement surgery, a procedure performed on about 700,000 people in the U.S. every year.
From ACM Opinion
China's Tech Moguls Warn of Ai's Troubling Trajectory
China has seen incredible economic and social changes over the past few decades. But could the impact of artificial intelligence take the country by surprise?
From ACM Opinion
Nvidia Ceo: Software Is Eating the World, but AI Is Going to Eat Software
Tech companies and investors have recently been piling money into artificial intelligence—and plenty has been trickling down to chip maker Nvidia.
From ACM Opinion
Russian Disinformation Technology
On July 17, 2014, as passengers checked in at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, "Necro Mancer"(@666_mancer) tweeted about an unusual...
From ACM Opinion
Finding Solace in Defeat By Artificial Intelligence
Fan Hui, the European Go champion, needed some fresh air. "I don't understand myself anymore."
From ACM Opinion
With Neuralink, Elon Musk Promises Human-to-Human Telepathy. Don't Believe It.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, by way of blogger and cartoonist Tim Urban, has revealed in a 36,400-word illustrated explainer the thinking behind his new...
From ACM Opinion
How to Keep the Government from Breaking the Internet
Telecommunications policy has been in flux since President Trump designated Ajit Pai the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in January.
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft: AI Isn't Yet Adaptable Enough to Help Businesses
The AI revolution may take longer than some expect to spread from Silicon Valley into other industries.
From ACM Opinion
This Entrepreneur Dares You to Hack His Gadgets
Serial entrepreneur Andrew "Bunnie" Huang believes that consumer product companies should make their hardware designs publicly available so that anyone can study...
From ACM Opinion
Hollywood Has No Idea What to Do with Vr
Would you watch a virtual-reality Casablanca?
From ACM Opinion