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
Einstein, Bohr and the War Over Quantum Theory
All hell broke loose in physics some 90 years ago. Quantum theory emerged—partly in heated clashes between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.
From ACM Opinion
Why 2001: A Space Odyssey's Mystery Endures, 50 Years On
Michael Benson's new book Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece offers a fresh look at the making of Stanley Kubrick's...
From ACM Opinion
The Ageless Appeal of 2001: A Space Odyssey
In 1968, film-maker Stanley Kubrick and his screenwriting colleague, science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, presented 2001: A Space Odyssey. Half a century later...
From ACM Opinion
It's Not My Fault, My Brain Implant Made Me Do It
Mr. B loves Johnny Cash, except when he doesn't. Mr. X has watched his doctors morph into Italian chefs right before his eyes.
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
How Cambridge Analytica's Facebook Targeting Model Really Worked, According to the Person Who Built It
The researcher whose work is at the center of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data analysis and political advertising uproar has revealed that his method worked...
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
To Protect Artificial Intelligence from Attacks, Show It Fake Data
AI systems can sometimes be tricked into seeing something that's not actually there, as when Google's software "saw" a 3-D-printed turtle as a rifle.
From ACM Opinion
The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data
The headlines about the trade wars being touched off by President Trump's new tariffs may telegraph plenty of bombast and shots fired, but the most consequential...
From ACM Opinion
The Blockchain Solution to Our Deepfake Problems
Blockchain has always seemed to me like a solution looking for a problem, which isn't a criticism.
From ACM Opinion
My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data
For a spell during 2010 and 2011, I was a virtual rancher of clickable cattle on Facebook.
From Communications of the ACM
Popping Kernels
Choosing between programming in the kernel or in user space.
From ACM Opinion
Ready Player One: We Are Surprisingly Close to Realizing Just Such a VR Dystopia
I was fortunate enough to catch a preview screening of Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ernest Cline's futuristic novel.
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
Fourier's Transformational Thinking
When you listen to digital music, the harmonies and chords that you hear have probably been reconstructed from a file that stored them as components of different...
From ACM Opinion
The FCC Should se Blockchain to Manage Wireless Spectrum
The technology at the heart of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin—blockchain—has captured the world's attention, much as the internet, peer-to-peer file transfers, apps...
From ACM Opinion
Intelligent to a Fault: When AI Screws p, You Might Still Be to Blame
Artificial intelligence is already making significant inroads in taking over mundane, time-consuming tasks many humans would rather not do.
From ACM Opinion
Ancient DNA Is Rewriting Human (and Neanderthal) History
Geneticist David Reich used to study the living, but now he studies the dead.
From ACM Opinion
An Ode to Insignificance: Buttons, Touchscreens, and Other Dangerous Technologies
"The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed," is an often-quoted line from the brilliant science-fiction writer William Gibson.
From ACM Opinion