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
The Data Scientist Helping to Create Ethical Robots
As the lead statistician at the nonprofit Human Rights Data Analysis Group, Kristian Lum, 33, is trying to make sure the algorithms increasingly controlling our...
From ACM Opinion
Can Artificial Intelligence Help Find Alien Intelligence?
In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), we've often looked for signs of intelligence, technology and communication that are similar to our own. ...
From ACM Opinion
The Singularity Is Not Near: The Intellectual Fraud of the 'Singularitarians'
Technology was identified as the true official religion of the modern state more than seventy years ago by the late Christian anarchist philosopher Jacques Ellul...
From ACM Opinion
'2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the 'ltimate Trip'
In the spring of 1964 the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was very worried. NASA was about to fly the Mariner 4 space probe past Mars.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Duplex Could Make Assistant the Most Lifelike AI Yet
The conversation seems mundane. At least, at first.
From ACM Opinion
How Frightened Should We Be of A.I.?
Precisely how and when will our curiosity kill us?
From ACM Opinion
AI Can Help Cybersecurity, If It Can Fight Through the Hype
Walking the enormous exhibition halls at the recent RSA security conference in San Francisco, you could have easily gotten the impression that digital defense was...
From ACM Opinion
Forging Voices and Faces: The Dangers of Audio and Video Fabrication
In 1963, before he could give the speech he'd prepared for his trip to Dallas, U.S. president John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In March 2018, a company re-created...
From ACM Opinion
Alexa, How Do We Take Our Relationship to the Next Level?
As useful as it would be to interact with smartphones and other gadgets by chatting casually with them, the technology to enable such a simple but meaningful back...
From ACM Opinion
Building AI Systems That Make Fair Decisions
Harini Suresh, a Ph.D. student at MIT CSAIL, studies how to make machine learning algorithms more understandable and less biased.
From ACM Opinion
Autonomous Weapons Would Take Warfare to a New Domain, Without Humans
Killer robots have been a staple of TV and movies for decades, from Westworld to The Terminator series. But in the real world, killer robots are officially known...
From ACM Opinion
Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook? Try Google
Recent controversy over Facebook Inc.'s hunger for personal data has surfaced the notion that the online advertising industry could be hazardous to our privacy...
From ACM Opinion
'2001: A Space Odyssey': What It Means, and How It Was Made
Fifty years ago this spring, Stanley Kubrick's confounding sci-fi masterpiece, "2001: A Space Odyssey," had its premières across the country.
From ACM Opinion
Why Silicon Valley Shouldn't Work With the Pentagon
Is Silicon Valley going to war?
From ACM Opinion
What the History of Math Can Teach s About the Future of AI
Whenever an impressive new technology comes along, people rush to imagine the havoc it could wreak on society, and they overreact. Today we see this happening with...
From ACM Opinion
Regulate Artificial Intelligence to Avert Cyber Arms Race
Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, sophisticated and destructive. Each day in 2017, the United States suffered, on average, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks...
From ACM Opinion
Amazon Robotics: An Interview With VP And Distinguished Engineer Brad Porter
Brad Porter, Amazon's Vice President and Distinguished Engineer of Robotics, is responsible for driving improvements in the company's worldwide operations.
From ACM Opinion
Three Problems with Facebook's Plan to Kill Hate Speech sing AI
Mark Zuckerberg told the US Congress this week that Facebook will increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to catch hate speech spread on the platform.
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