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
To Illustrate the Dangers of Cyberwarfare, the Army Is Turning to Sci-Fi
At first glance, Dark Hammer looks a lot like any other science fiction comic book: On the front cover, a drone flies over a river dividing a city with damaged...
From ACM Opinion
Med Students Are Getting Terrible Training in Robotic Surgery
If you think your on-the-job training was tough, imagine what life is like for newbie surgeons.
From ACM Opinion
How to Make A.I. Human-Friendly
For a field that was not well known outside of academia a decade ago, artificial intelligence has grown dizzyingly fast. Tech companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing...
From ACM Opinion
Bioengineers Today Emphasize the Crucial Ingredient Dr. Frankenstein Forgot: Responsibility
Mary Shelley was 20 when she published "Frankenstein" in 1818. Two hundred years on, the book remains thrilling, challenging and relevant—especially for scientists...
From ACM Opinion
The Limits of Explainability
When we look at a stack of blocks or a stack of Oreos, we intuitively have a sense of how stable it is, whether it might fall over, and in what direction it may...
From ACM Opinion
Tech Companies Should Stop Pretending AI Won't Destroy Jobs
I took an Uber to an artificial-intelligence conference at MIT one recent morning, and the driver asked me how long it would take for autonomous vehicles to take...
From ACM Opinion
This 'Gray Hat' Hacker Breaks Into Your Car, to Prove a Point
Cybercrime is expanding beyond computers and cellphones. Cars, washers and dryers, and even toasters are going online—an evolution of technology called the ...
From Communications of the ACM
Computational Social Science ≠ Computer Science + Social Data
The important intersection of computer science and social science.
From Communications of the ACM
Responsible Research with Crowds: Pay Crowdworkers at Least Minimum Wage
High-level guidelines for the treatment of crowdworkers.
From Communications of the ACM
Impediments with Policy Interventions to Foster Cybersecurity
A call for discussion of governmental investment and intervention in support of cybersecurity.
From Communications of the ACM
Ethics Omission Increases Gases Emission
A look in the rearview mirror at Volkswagon software engineering.
From Communications of the ACM
Will the Supreme Court Nix Reviews of Bad Patents?
Considering the longer-term implications of a soon-to-be-decided U.S. Supreme Court case.
From ACM Opinion
How to Make Replication the Norm
Replication is essential for building confidence in research studies, yet it is still the exception rather than the rule.
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Is Designed to Bring Out The Worst In s
Tristan Harris has become an influential critic of how Silicon Valley designs products to addict us. In an interview, Harris talks about how the 2016 election threw...
From ACM Opinion
How to Monitor Fake News
The indictment of 13 Russians filed on Friday by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election,...
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
Trump's Budget Wants the S to Stop Watching the Planet
Today, the Trump administration released a proposed budget that called for massive cuts to science research across the federal government.
From ACM Opinion
His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming
Among the many, many Democrats who will seek the party's presidential nomination in 2020, most probably agree on a handful of core issues: protecting DACA, rejoining...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Post-Text Future
I'll make this short: The thing you're doing now, reading prose on a screen, is going out of fashion.
From ACM Opinion