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
Robot Weapons: What's the Harm?
Last month over a thousand scientists and tech-world luminaries, including Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak, released an open letter calling for a global...
From ACM Opinion
Humans, Not Robots, Are the Real Reason Artificial Intelligence Is Scary
Unfortunately, much of the recent outcry against artificial-intelligence weapons has been confused, conjuring robot takeovers of mankind.
From ACM Opinion
Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?
Famed science-fiction writer Fredric Brown (1906–1972) delighted in creating the shortest of short stories. "Answer," published in 1954, encapsulated a prescient...
From ACM Opinion
Why Larry Page Is Stepping Away
In the ten years that I’ve been watching him, Larry Page has always wanted to play by his own rules.
From ACM Opinion
With Google as Alphabet, a Bid to Dream Big Beyond Search
Shortly after its founding, Google posted a document on its site called "Ten things we know to be true," an effort to distill its unusual corporate culture into...
From ACM Opinion
How Fiction Can Reveal the Horrors of Future Wars
The fact that he couldn't feel the drill going into the back of his skull made the noise all the more terrifying.
From ACM Opinion
Is Artificial Intelligence Really an Existential Threat to Humanity?
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies is an astonishing book with an alarming thesis: Intelligent machines are "quite possibly the most important and most...
From ACM Opinion
Genomics Pioneer Jun Wang on His New AI Venture
Jun Wang is one of China's most famous scientists.
From ACM Opinion
Tony Fadell: What Will Google's $3.2bn Guru Do Next?
When Google paid $3.2bn (£2.1bn) to buy Tony Fadell's start-up Nest in 2014, it got much more than just an internet-connected thermostat and smoke detector.
From ACM Opinion
The Truth About the Turing Test
Alan Turing made many predictions about artificial intelligence, but one of his lesser known may sound familiar to those who have heard Stephen Hawking or Elon...
From ACM Opinion
The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2
Summer is one of the most dangerous times of the year on U.S. streets, as many of us spend more time behind the wheel, heading out for long road trips or local...
From ACM Opinion
How Worried Should You Be About Artificial Intelligence?
Intelligent machines come in myriad forms, so which ones pose a danger to us, and how likely are they to actually happen?
From ACM Opinion
The DARPA Robotics Challenge Was A Bust
It's been close to a month since the DARPA Robotics Challenge wrapped up. That's time enough to face facts. The biggest and most well-funded international robotics...
From ACM Opinion
The Very Best Ideas For Preventing Artificial Intelligence from Wrecking the Planet
The Boston-based Future of Life Institute, backed by a $10 million donation from Elon Musk, recently announced its list of 37 winners of research grants in the....
From ACM Opinion
Meet Our Future Robosimian Heroes
Not all robots are built for war and destruction.
From ACM Opinion
Is Star Trek Tech Possible?
My friend Veronica Belmont is pretty cool. Nerd, writer, TV host… and now she’s doing an online video series with Engadget called "Dear Veronica," where she answers...
From ACM Opinion
Stephen Hawking Asks a Big Question of Mark Zuckerberg
Stephen Hawking woke up Tuesday morning and immediately summoned his handlers.
From ACM News
Should a Driverless Car Decide Who Lives or Dies?
The gearheads in Detroit, Tokyo, and Stuttgart have mostly figured out how to build driverless vehicles. Even the Google guys seem to have solved the riddle.
From ACM Opinion