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
Ditch All Those Other Messaging Apps: Here's Why You Should se Signal
Stop me if you've heard this before.
From ACM Opinion
Net States Rule the World; We Need to Recognize Their Power
"We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code." So declared MIT professor David D. Clark in 1992.
From ACM Opinion
Workers Displaced By Automation Should Try a New Job: Caregiver
Sooner or later, the US will face mounting job losses due to advances in automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
From ACM Opinion
Provoking Iran Could Have nseen Cyber Consequences
On Friday, President Trump announced that he will not certify Iran's cooperation with the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama Administration.
From ACM Opinion
Algorithms Have Already Gone Rogue
For more than two decades, Tim O'Reilly has been the conscience of the tech industry.
From ACM Opinion
Red-Pilled: My Bizarre Week sing the Alt-Right's Vision of the Internet
Scroll with me here. Somebody named BeatlesBaby makes "a very badass chicken curry." Look, there's a nice sepia-tinted pencil drawing of Ned Stark from Game of...
From ACM Opinion
Software Has a Serious Supply-Chain Security Problem
The warnings consumers hear from information security pros tend to focus on trust: Don't click web links or attachments from an untrusted sender.
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Faceid Could Be a Powerful Tool For Mass Spying
This Tuesday Apple unveiled a new line of phones to much fanfare, but one feature immediately fell under scrutiny:FaceID, a tool that would use facial recognition...
From ACM Opinion
What I Learned at Gerrymandering Summer Camp
At 6'5", Aaron Dennis towers over the whiteboard beside him.
From ACM Opinion
Sorry, Banning 'killer Robots' Just Isn't Practical
Late Sunday, 116 entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, released a letter to the United Nations warning of the dangerous "Pandora's Box" presented by weapons that...
From ACM Opinion
Everyone Thinks That Automation Will Take Our Jobs. The Evidence Disagrees
Last year, the Japanese company SoftBank opened a cell phone store in Tokyo and staffed it entirely with sales associates named Pepper. This wasn't as hard as it...
From ACM Opinion
It's Past Time For You to Ditch that Fancy Scientific Calculator
Bruce Sherwood, the author of Matter and Interactions, had a question for me when I saw him at the American Association of Physics Teachers conference not long...
From ACM Opinion
The Attack on Global Privacy Leaves Few Places to Turn
Digital privacy has had a very bad summer. As China and Russia move to block virtual private network services, well over a billion people face losing their best...
From ACM Opinion
What Is Ray Kurzweil p To at Google? Writing Your Emails
Ray Kurzweil has invented a few things in his time.
From ACM Opinion
Letting Cyberattack Victims Hack Back Is a Very nwise Idea
As the rate of cybercrime increases, so too does the intensity of those attacks.
From ACM Opinion
AI Could Revolutionize War As Much As Nukes
In 1899, the world's most powerful nations signed a treaty at The Hague that banned military use of aircraft, fearing the emerging technology's destructive power...
From ACM Opinion
AI Will Make Forging Anything Entirely Too Easy
"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," said an exasperated James Comey in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. Comey's desire reflects a...
From ACM Opinion
It's Too Late to Stop China from Becoming an AI Superpower
Last Thursday, Texas senior senator John Cornyn stood before an audience of wonks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, and warned that America's...
From ACM Opinion
The Iphone's Turning 10. What Will It Look Like at 20?
You wake up refreshed. Ever since you got that alarm clock that adapts to your sleep cycle, your calendar, and the traffic report, you practically leap out of bed...
From ACM Opinion