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
How Steve Wozniak Got Over His Fear of Robots Turning People Into Pets
Steve Wozniak is one half of Silicon Valley's most prototypical founder's myth.
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
I Never Thought I'd Be Marching For Science
But the anti-science stance of the current administration — silencing scientists, removing data from federal websites, proposing drastic funding cuts — hits my...
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
How to Keep the Government from Breaking the Internet
Telecommunications policy has been in flux since President Trump designated Ajit Pai the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in January.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Net Neutrality in Trump's America
Now that President Trump has signed legislation repealing landmark federal privacy protections for Internet users, many in Washington are trying to decipher what...
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
The Inventor of the Web Predicts 'a Massive Outcry' Over Online Privacy
More than two decades ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the thing you're using to read this story right now—the World Wide Web.
From ACM Opinion
In kraine, Russia Weaponizes Fake News to Fight a Real War
As the Russian shells and rockets rained down on them in the front-line town of Debaltseve in February 2015, Ukrainian troops began to receive curious, anonymous...
From ACM Opinion
Trump Has Done Nothing to Fix America's Tech Talent Shortage
President Trump's long-promised changes to the United States' high-skilled worker visa program may have to wait another year. For tech leaders, this decision to...
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
What to Expect Now That Internet Providers Can Collect and Sell Your Web Browser History
After Congress handed President Trump legislation Tuesday that would wipe away landmark privacy protections for Internet users, we received a lot of reader questions...
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
How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy to Internet Providers
On Tuesday afternoon, while most people were focused on the latest news from the House Intelligence Committee, the House quietly voted to undo rules that keep internet...
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