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
Facebook's Cyborg Virtual Assistant Is Learning from Its Trainers
Late last month a few hundred lucky users of Facebook's mobile messaging app got an unusual new contact to talk with: M, a virtual assistant powered by a mixture...
From ACM Opinion
Brynjolfsson and Mcafee: The Jobs that AI Can't Replace
At the heart of capitalism is the concept of creative destruction.
From ACM Opinion
The False Science of Cryonics
I woke up on Saturday to a heartbreaking front-page article in the New York Times about a terminally ill young woman who chooses to freeze her brain.
From ACM Opinion
Do We Need to Prepare For the Robot prising?
For most of my life, I've been disappointed in robots.
From ACM Opinion
Making AI Work in the Real World
Until recently, AI seemed firmly stuck in the realm of science fiction.
From ACM Opinion
Mark Zuckerberg and the End of Language
Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg hosted an online Q&A session on his personal Facebook page.
From ACM Opinion
sing Technology to Break the Speed Barrier of Reading
I grew up in a tiny New York City apartment, packed in alongside our four cats and my father's immense personal library of some 3000 books.
From ACM Opinion
The Next Not-So-Cold War: As Climate Change Heats Arctic, Nations Scramble For Control and Resources
President Barack Obama arrived in Alaska on Monday for a three-day tour during which he will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Alaska Arctic.
From ACM Opinion
You Can't nderstand Security Without These Classic Works
There are seminal books, movies, articles, and more that you've been meaning to get to but just haven't made the time for.
From ACM Opinion
A Beginner's Guide to Invisibility
It is possible, according to many sources, to become invisible, but you must be patient, methodical, and willing to eat almost anything.
From ACM Opinion
The Government Needs to Work with Silicon Valley to Create Our Military Future
In 1931, the city fathers of Sunnyvale, California, came up with a unique plan to rescue their town from the doldrums of the Great Depression.
From ACM News
Nine Real Nasa Technologies in 'the Martian'
Mars has held a central place in human imagination and culture for millennia.
From ACM Opinion
In Search of the Keys to the Virtual City
I'm not the first man to believe that he might fix London.
From ACM Opinion
Why Neuroscience Needs Hackers
There was a time when neuroscientists could only dream of having such a problem.
From ACM Opinion
Who Won Science Fiction's Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters
Since 1953, to be nominated for a Hugo Award, among the highest honors in science fiction and fantasy writing, has been a dream come true for authors who love time...
From ACM Opinion
Psychiatry Is Reinventing Itself Thanks to Advances in Biology
A revolution is under way in psychiatry. The science underpinning this discipline has in the past shifted from psychology to pharmacology, and now it is changing...
From ACM Opinion
What Is Elegance in Science?
In 1957, a few years after Francis Crick co-discovered the DNA double helix and a few years before he co-won a Nobel Prize for doing so, he published a paper on...
From ACM Opinion
How Close Are We Really to a Robot-Run Society?
From Rosie, the Jetsons' robot maid, to Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg in The Terminator, popular culture has frequently conceived of robots as having a human-like...
From ACM Opinion
Move Over, Siri—the Next Generation of Virtual Assistants Is Almost Here
Virtual voice-controlled assistants such as Siri, Cortana and Google Now are magical.
From ACM Opinion