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
Richard Feynman Was Wrong About Beauty and Truth in Science
Richard Feynman was unquestionably one of the outstanding physicists of the 20th century. In the area of philosophy of science, though, Feynman didn't really shine—to...
From ACM Opinion
Black Hole Hunters: Q&A With Katie Bouman
Scientists have revealed the first-ever image of a black hole. The picture is the result of a global collaboration in which scientists linked together telescopes...
From ACM Opinion
The .S. Campaign Against Huawei Can Offer No .S.-Based Alternatives
As U.S. officials have pressured allies not to use networking gear from Chinese technology giant Huawei over spying concerns, President Trump has urged American...
From ACM Opinion
Untold History of AI: The DARPA Dreamer Who Aimed for Cyborg Intelligence
At 10:30pm on 29 October 1969, a graduate student at UCLA sent a two-letter message from an SDS Sigma 7 computer to another machine a few hundred miles away at...
From ACM Opinion
The Robocall Crisis Will Never Be Totally Fixed
Years into the robocalling frenzy, your phone probably still rings off the hook with "important information about your account," updates from the "Chinese embassy...
From ACM Opinion
AI Pioneer: 'The Dangers of Abuse Are Very Real'
Yoshua Bengio is one of three computer scientists who last week shared the US$1-million A. M. Turing award—one of the field's top prizes.
From ACM Opinion
A Journey, If You Dare, Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers
Code seems cold and objective, the raw logic of the internet, and Silicon Valley likes it that way.
From ACM Opinion
Despite Consumer Worries, the Future of Aviation Will Be More Automated
In the wake of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes, people are thinking about how much of their air travel is handled by software...
From ACM Opinion
How the Data Mining of Failure Could Teach s the Secrets of Success
Thomas Edison is often described as America's greatest inventor. His successes include electric power generation, sound recording, and the electric lightbulb.
From ACM Opinion
Robots on the Run
Young animals gallop across fields, climb trees and immediately find their feet with enviable grace after they fall.
From ACM Opinion
Cars Are Regulated for Safety, Why Not Information Technology?
As the computing industry grapples with its role in society, many people, both in the field and outside it, are talking about a crisis of ethics.
From ACM Opinion
The ncanny Valley Nobody's Talking About: Eerie Robot Voices
Call it the Great Convergence of Creepiness. The first bit, the uncanny valley, we're all familiar with by now: If a humanoid robot looks super realistic, but not...
From ACM Opinion
How 2D Semiconductors Could Extend Moore's Law
The number of components in electronic circuits has doubled every two years since the 1960s—a trend known as Moore's law.
From ACM Opinion
The FAA Rigorously Tested the Boeing 737's Software
Two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes have crashed under similar circumstances in the past six months, one in October in Indonesia and the other in Ethiopia last week....
From ACM Opinion
A Second 737 Max Crash Raises Questions about Airplane Automation
As you read this, over a million people are in flight. Close to a third of the commercial airplanes in the sky at any given moment are Boeing 737s: it is the best...
From ACM Opinion
FBI Head Christopher Wray: We Can't Let Criminals Hide Behind Encryption
Encryption should have limits. That's the message FBI Director Christopher Wray had for cybersecurity experts Tuesday.
From ACM Opinion