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
When Will We Be Able to Vote Online?
Sooner or later everything seems to go online. Newspapers. TV. Radio. Shopping. Banking. Dating.
From ACM Opinion
The Step Needed to Make Virtual Reality More Real
It's one thing to play the arcade game Whac-A-Mole by swinging around an oversized mallet; it's far easier to whack those moles virtually, controlling the mallet...
From ACM Opinion
There May Be a Way to Allow Mass Surveillance and Preserve Our Privacy at the Same Time
If we've learned anything over the past few years, it's that governments will make all sorts of excuses to justify the surveillance of its citizens.
From ACM Opinion
The Language Barrier Is About to Fall
It used to be the case when I traveled abroad that I would take a little pocket dictionary that provided translations for commonly used phrases and words.
From ACM Opinion
Will Machines Eliminate s?
Yoshua Bengio leads one of the world's preëminent research groups developing a powerful AI technique known as deep learning.
From ACM Opinion
Digital Intuition
Napoleon had it and so did Charles Darwin. Tennis champion Roger Federer has it in spades. The dictionary defines intuition as knowledge obtained without conscious...
From ACM News
Is Blockchain the Most Important It Invention of Our Age?
There are not many occasions when one can give an unqualified thumbs-up to something the government does, but this is one such occasion.
From ACM Opinion
Go Players React to Computer Defeat
For decades, the ancient game of Go has stood out as the one board game that computers couldn't crack.
From ACM Opinion
If Killer Robots Arrive, the Terminator Will Be the Least of Our Problems
Autonomous weapons experts sounded the alarm last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, cautioning that unless governments act to limit these...
From ACM Opinion
Why We'e So Vulnerable
In an age of continuing electronic breaches and rising geopolitical tensions over cyber-espionage, the White House is working on a national cybersecurity strategy...
From ACM Opinion
To Make AI More Human, Teach It to Chitchat
Tom was discussing the film star Tang Wei with a chatbot named XiaoIce, and the bot was excited: "A goddess! She stole my heart … and then went off and married!"...
From ACM Opinion
Psa: Do Not se the New Prime Number For Rsa Encryption
You may have heard that there’s a new largest prime number in town.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Ai—the Human-Friendly Future of Computing Is Already Here
For many of us, the concept of artificial intelligence conjures up visions of a machine-dominated world, where humans are servants to the devices they created.
From ACM Opinion
Planet Nine May Help S Slingshot Our Way to Interstellar Space
In his famous sonnet, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, John Keats describes the moment he first came to appreciate some of the great works of classical antiquity...
From ACM Opinion
5 Big Changes Coming to Social Media in 2016
It's been a memorable year in social media. 2015 saw the birth of live social streaming, with apps like Periscope and Meerkat winning over early adopters.
From ACM Opinion
The 'pluto Killer' Who Thinks He's Found the True Ninth Planet
Mike Brown is an astronomer at Caltech who's been instrumental in the discovery of more than 30 dwarf planets and asteroids at the far reaches of our solar system...
From ACM Opinion
The Long and Winding History of Encryption
Never in history have more people had access to advanced encryption in their homes, offices, and pockets.
From ACM Opinion
Wikipedia Turns 15
It must be difficult for the roughly half a billion people who visit Wikipedia every month to remember a world without the free online encyclopedia.
From ACM Opinion