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
Is This the Beginning of the End of the Internet?
How a single Texas ruling could change the Web forever.
From ACM Opinion
The FAA Rigorously Tested the Boeing 737's Software
Two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes have crashed under similar circumstances in the past six months, one in October in Indonesia and the other in Ethiopia last week....
From ACM Opinion
7 Arguments Against the Autonomous-Vehicle Utopia
Self-driving cars are coming. Tech giants such as Uber and Alphabet have bet on it, as have old-school car manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors.
From ACM Opinion
Nobody's Cellphone Is Really That Secure
Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that the Russians and the Chinese were eavesdropping on President Donald Trump's personal cellphone and using the...
From ACM Opinion
Could Quantum Computing Be the End of Free Will?
Faster, more powerful computing has the potential to revolutionize fields from drug delivery to freight transportation.
From ACM Opinion
Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore
The telephone swept into Americans' lives in the first decades of the 20th century.
From ACM Opinion
How the Enlightenment Ends
Three years ago, at a conference on transatlantic issues, the subject of artificial intelligence appeared on the agenda. I was on the verge of skipping that session—it...
From ACM Opinion
The Era of Fake Video Begins
In a dank corner of the internet, it is possible to find actresses from Game of Thrones or Harry Potter engaged in all manner of sex acts. Or at least to the world...
From ACM Opinion
Enough With the Trolley Problem
You know the drill by now: A runaway trolley is careening down a track. There are five workers ahead, sure to be killed if the trolley reaches them.
From ACM Opinion
The Man With the Most Valuable Work Experience in the World
Chris Urmson led Google's self-driving car team from its early days all the way until the company shed its Google skin and emerged under the Alphabet umbrella as...
From ACM Opinion
Retweets Are Trash
A couple of months ago, I made a small tweak to my Twitter account that has changed my experience of the platform.
From ACM Opinion
19th-Century Paleontology Was at the Forefront of Big Data
In 1981, when I was 9 years old, my father took me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark.
From ACM Opinion
My Pacemaker Is Tracking Me from Inside My Body
A month before turning 34, I received an unexpected birthday gift: a cloud-connected pacemaker.
From ACM Opinion
The New Way Your Computer Can Be Attacked
On January 3, the world learned about a series of major security vulnerabilities in modern microprocessors. Called Spectre and Meltdown, these vulnerabilities were...
From ACM Opinion
Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch
As self-driving cars inch closer to everyday reality, journalists, futurists, economists, and ethicists have weighed in with numerous predictions about autonomous...
From ACM Opinion
How Driverless Cars Will Change the Feel of Cities
It's 6 p.m. in Tempe, Arizona and pitch-black outside. I'm standing in the middle of a five-lane thoroughfare, among a group of people too numerous for the narrow...
From ACM News
The Coming Software Apocalypse
There were six hours during the night of April 10, 2014, when the entire population of Washington State had no 911 service.
From ACM Opinion
You Are Already Living Inside a Computer
Suddenly, everything is a computer. Phones, of course, and televisions. Also toasters and door locks, baby monitors and juicers, doorbells and gas grills. Even ...
From ACM Opinion
Donald Trump's 'impenetrable Cybersecurity' Is Pure Fantasy
Nothing connected to the internet is safe from hackers. And I mean nothing.
From ACM Opinion