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
Track How Technology Is Transforming Work
Advances in technology pose huge challenges for jobs. Productivity levels have never been higher in the United States, for example, but income for the bottom 50...
From ACM Opinion
Melding Mind and Machine: How Close Are We?
Just as ancient Greeks fantasized about soaring flight, today's imaginations dream of melding minds and machines as a remedy to the pesky problem of human mortality...
From ACM Opinion
There's Nowhere to Hide on the Internet
Sometime before dawn on March 29th, not too many hours after Congress approved legislation that allows Internet-service providers to sell your browsing historyInternet...
From ACM Opinion
With New Technology, Mathematicians Turn Numbers Into art
Once upon a time, mathematicians imagined their job was to discover new mathematics and then let others explain it.
From ACM Opinion
What If We Had Perfect Robot Referees
Last month, Mark Clattenburg, who is generally regarded as one of the finest referees in professional soccer, left England's Premier League for a better-paying...
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft: AI Isn't Yet Adaptable Enough to Help Businesses
The AI revolution may take longer than some expect to spread from Silicon Valley into other industries.
From ACM Opinion
Ghost in the Sell: Hollywood's Mischievous Vision of AI
Watch enough science fiction movies and you'll probably come to the conclusion that humans are living on borrowed time.
From ACM Opinion
War By Any Means: The Story of DARPA
Shortly after arriving at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in April 1958, the new chief scientist presented a plan to the agency's director.
From ACM Opinion
The Trump Administration's War on Science
"Think of the marvels we can achieve if we simply set free the dreams of our people," President Trump said in his speech to Congress last month, after summoning...
From ACM Opinion
Evolution Strategies as a Scalable Alternative to Reinforcement Learning
We've discovered that evolution strategies (ES), an optimization technique that's been known for decades, rivals the performance of standard reinforcement learning...
From Communications of the ACM
The Chess Player Who Couldn't Pass the Salt
AI: Soft and hard, weak and strong, narrow and general. Dear KV,
From ACM Opinion
The Battle For Top AI Talent Only Gets Tougher From Here
Andrew Ng helped create two of Silicon Valley's leading artificial intelligence labs.
From ACM Opinion
No, Microwave Ovens Cannot Spy on You, For Lots of Reasons
If you've been feeling a little paranoid lately—like even your standing mixer may be spying on you—rest assured that Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway shares...
From ACM Opinion
Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs With Smartphones?
Amid an opioid epidemic, the rise of deadly synthetic drugs and the widening legalization of marijuana, a curious bright spot has emerged in the youth drug culture...
From ACM Opinion
This Entrepreneur Dares You to Hack His Gadgets
Serial entrepreneur Andrew "Bunnie" Huang believes that consumer product companies should make their hardware designs publicly available so that anyone can study...
From ACM Opinion
'this Is an All Hands on Deck Thing': A Former Obama Technology Adviser on Robots, Jobs and Cyberwarfare
During the Obama administration, R. David Edelman was one of the president's top advisers. As a part of Obama's National Security Council and his National Economic...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Biggest Challenge Facing AI Is an Ethical One
Artificial intelligence is everywhere and it's here to stay.
From ACM Opinion
The Wisdom of Nokia's Dumbphone
They weighed heavy in pockets and jackets and bags, for they were thick and bulky, not lithe and narrow.
From ACM Opinion
I'm Marching to Fight the Alarming War on Science. Join Me
Two new public marches and demonstrations focused on science and climate change have been scheduled for April. I plan to be at both.
From ACM Opinion