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
Mr. Robot Killed the Hollywood Hacker
For decades Hollywood has treated computers as magic boxes from which endless plot points could be conjured, in denial of all common sense.
From ACM News
Google, Democracy and the Truth About Internet Search
Here's what you don’t want to do late on a Sunday night. You do not want to type seven letters into Google. That's all I did.
From ACM Opinion
Robots Won't Kill the Workforce. They'll Save the Global Economy.
The United Nations forecasts that the global population will rise from 7.3 billion to nearly 10 billion by 2050, a big number that often prompts warnings about...
From ACM Opinion
What Is 'military Artificial Intelligence'?
We are in an era of existential fear of technology.
From ACM Opinion
Trump's First 100 Days: Technology, Privacy and Intelligence
President-elect Donald Trump's views on technology and tech policy were not prominent campaign features on his contentious path to the White House.
From ACM Opinion
Beyond Touch: Tomorrow's Devices Will se Mems ltrasound to Hear Your Gestures
Today, we control our electronic world by touch—we tap, we swipe, we pinch and zoom.
From ACM Opinion
The New Words That Expose Our Smartphone Obsessions
New words sometimes skewer a trend so perfectly you wonder how you survived without them. One of the most delightfully apt new phrases I've found in the last few...
From ACM Opinion
Genevieve Bell: 'humanity's Greatest Fear Is About Being Irrelevant'
Genevieve Bell is an Australian anthropologist who has been working at tech company Intel for 18 years, where she is currently head of sensing and insights.
From ACM Opinion
Misinformation on Social Media: Can Technology Save us?
If you get your news from social media, as most Americans do, you are exposed to a daily dose of hoaxes, rumors, conspiracy theories and misleading news.
From ACM Opinion
Manufacturing Jobs Aren't Coming Back
Pundits will debate the wellsprings of Donald Trump's election triumph for years.
From ACM Opinion
Time to Dump Time Zones
We will awaken Sunday to yet another disturbance in the chronosphere—our twice-yearly jolt from resetting the clocks, mechanical and biological.
From ACM Opinion
The Lost Civilization of Dial-p Bulletin Board Systems
I have a vivid, recurring dream. I climb the stairs in my parents' house to see my old bedroom. In the back corner, I hear a faint humming.
From ACM Opinion
The Security Challenges of Online Voting Have Not Gone Away
Online voting is sometimes heralded as a solution to all our election headaches.
From ACM News
Digitizing the Cia: John Brennan's Attempt to Lead America's Spies Into the Age of Cyberwar
When America goes to the polls on Nov. 8, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, it will likely experience the culmination of a new form of...
From ACM Opinion
Chinese Characters Are Futuristic and the Alphabet Is Old News
On a bright fall morning at Stanford, Tom Mullaney is telling me what's wrong with QWERTY keyboards.
From ACM Opinion
Why Robots Must Learn to Tell S 'no'
HAL 9000, the sentient computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, offers an ominous glimpse of a future in which machines endowed with artificial intelligence reject human...
From ACM Opinion
Today's Artificial Intelligence Does Not Justify Basic Income
Not a day goes by when we do not hear about the threat of AI taking over the jobs of everyone from truck drivers to accountants to radiologists.
From ACM Opinion
America Isn't Ready For a Cyberattack
The recent cyberattack that rendered more than 1,200 websites unreachable was a warning. Experts say a similar, or larger, attack could be launched tomorrow, and...
From ACM Opinion
E-Voting Refuses to Die Even Though It's Neither Secure Nor Secret
In theory, using the internet or e-mail to vote for the U.S. president sounds like a good idea.
From Communications of the ACM