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Algorithms Have Already Gone Rogue
From ACM Opinion

Algorithms Have Already Gone Rogue

For more than two decades, Tim O'Reilly has been the conscience of the tech industry.

How the Chinese Cyberthreat Has evolved
From ACM Opinion

How the Chinese Cyberthreat Has evolved

With more than half of its 1.4 billion people online, the world's most populous country is home to a slew of cyberspies and hackers.

Let's ­se the Government's Massive Databases to Make Better Policy
From ACM Opinion

Let's ­se the Government's Massive Databases to Make Better Policy

Members of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking appear before Congress this week to present their final report (pdf). 

Misinformation Is the New Normal of Mass Shootings
From ACM Opinion

Misinformation Is the New Normal of Mass Shootings

On the morning after the deadliest shooting in modern American history, there was a certain predictability in the response to a tragedy that left at least 59 dead...

Forget Killer Robots; Bias Is the Real AI Danger
From ACM Opinion

Forget Killer Robots; Bias Is the Real AI Danger

Google's AI chief isn't fretting about super-intelligent killer robots. Instead, John Giannandrea is concerned about the danger that may be lurking inside the machine...

Are Computers Already Smarter Than Humans?
From ACM Opinion

Are Computers Already Smarter Than Humans?

Who's smarter—you, or the computer or mobile device on which you're reading this article? The answer is increasingly complex, and depends on definitions in flux...

Red-Pilled: My Bizarre Week ­sing the Alt-Right's Vision of the Internet
From ACM Opinion

Red-Pilled: My Bizarre Week ­sing the Alt-Right's Vision of the Internet

Scroll with me here. Somebody named BeatlesBaby makes "a very badass chicken curry." Look, there's a nice sepia-tinted pencil drawing of Ned Stark from Game of...

The Coming Software Apocalypse
From ACM News

The Coming Software Apocalypse

There were six hours during the night of April 10, 2014, when the entire population of Washington State had no 911 service.

What, Exactly, Were Russians Trying to Do With Those Facebook Ads?
From ACM Opinion

What, Exactly, Were Russians Trying to Do With Those Facebook Ads?

Many questions remain about the ads purchased by Russian-linked accounts during the 2016 presidential election.

Europe Is Designing a New Particle Collider to Take On China
From ACM Careers

Europe Is Designing a New Particle Collider to Take On China

CERN, the European nuclear physics research organization, is contemplating the development of a particle accelerator three times larger than the Large Hadron Collider...

Is Beaming Down In star Trek a Death Sentence?
From ACM Opinion

Is Beaming Down In star Trek a Death Sentence?

In the 2009 movie Star Trek, Captain Kirk and Sulu plummeted down toward the planet Vulcan without a parachute. "Beam us up, beam us up!" Kirk shouted in desperation...

Facebook's Belated Awakening
From ACM Opinion

Facebook's Belated Awakening

Chastened by criticism that Facebook had turned a blind eye to Russia's manipulation of the social network to interfere in the 2016 election, the company's executives...

Facebook's Ad Scandal Isn't a 'fail,' It's a Feature
From ACM Opinion

Facebook's Ad Scandal Isn't a 'fail,' It's a Feature

What does it take to advertise on Facebook to people who openly call themselves "Jew haters" and want to know "how to burn Jews"? About $10 and 15 minutes, according...

I Helped Create Facebook's Ad Machine. Here's How I'd Fix It
From ACM Opinion

I Helped Create Facebook's Ad Machine. Here's How I'd Fix It

This month, two magnificently embarrassing public-relations disasters rocked the Facebook money machine like nothing else in its history.

These Robots Can Merge and Split Their Brains to Form New Modular Bots
From ACM News

These Robots Can Merge and Split Their Brains to Form New Modular Bots

We cover all kinds of modular robotics around here, and when we do, we're almost always talking about one overall robotic system made up of many different modules...

Remembering Lotfi Zadeh, the Inventor of Fuzzy Logic
From ACM Careers

Remembering Lotfi Zadeh, the Inventor of Fuzzy Logic

One night in July, 1964, the logician Lotfi Zadeh found himself alone in his parents' New York apartment, his dinner plans cancelled.

Is There Any Hope For Facebook's Fact-Checking Efforts?
From ACM Opinion

Is There Any Hope For Facebook's Fact-Checking Efforts?

Facebook's fact-checking efforts are on the rocks.

Software Has a Serious Supply-Chain Security Problem
From ACM Opinion

Software Has a Serious Supply-Chain Security Problem

The warnings consumers hear from information security pros tend to focus on trust: Don't click web links or attachments from an untrusted sender.

Cassini Vanishes Into Saturn, Its Mission Celebrated and Mourned
From ACM Opinion

Cassini Vanishes Into Saturn, Its Mission Celebrated and Mourned

NASA&'s Cassini spacecraft, the intrepid robotic explorer of Saturn's magnificent beauty, ended a journey of 20 years on Friday like a shooting star streaking across...

Why It's a Real Mistake to Count on a Cellphone When You Go Hiking
From ACM Opinion

Why It's a Real Mistake to Count on a Cellphone When You Go Hiking

Sarah Savage was alone in the woods and didn't know which way to turn.
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