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
The Apple Fight Isn't About Encryption
The most striking aspect of Apple's message to customers on Tuesday wasn't the rejection of U.S. authorities' demand that the company help them break the encryption...
From ACM Opinion
Is D-Wave's Quantum Processor Really 10⁸ Times Faster Than a Normal Computer?
We have been following D-Wave's claims about its quantum hardware at Ars for a number of years. Over that time, my impression has oscillated between skepticism,...
From ACM Opinion
Why Robots and Smart Thermostats Keep America's Spy Chief p at Night
Some people are already used to having their personal information exposed in massive data breaches.
From ACM Opinion
Moore's Law Really Is Dead This Time
Moore's law has died at the age of 51 after an extended illness.
From ACM Opinion
Y'all Have a Texas Accent? Siri (and the World) Might Be Slowly Killing It
It was a simple enough question, at least in this part of the world.
From ACM Opinion
Obama's Cybersecurity Plan Is Meant to Secure His Legacy
The end of White House terms are often about trying to shape historic legacies, and President Obama is out to build his in the new area of cybersecurity.
From ACM Opinion
Your Next New Best Friend Might Be a Robot
One night in late July 2014, a journalist from the Chinese newspaper Southern Weeklyinterviewed a 17-year-old Chinese girl named Xiaoice (pronounced Shao-ice).
From ACM Opinion
Searching For the Algorithms nderlying Life
To the computer scientist Leslie Valiant, "machine learning" is redundant.
From ACM Opinion
It's Been 20 Years Since This Man Declared Cyberspace Independence
When digital dystopians and critics of Internet libertarians need a rhetorical dart board, they often pull out a document written by John Perry Barlow, co-founder...
From ACM Opinion
From Exile to Eminence: How the Alien Hunters Conquered Astronomy
When Jill Tarter first began to look for aliens, she drew looks askance from her friends and colleagues.
From ACM Opinion
To Keep AI Safe—use AI
Software is already pervasive in our society, but artificial intelligence software raises unique concerns even among the technological elite.
From ACM Opinion
The Embarrassing, Destructive Fight Over Biotech's Big Breakthrough
A defining moment in modern biology occurred on July 24, 1978, when biotechnology pioneer Robert Swanson, who had recently co-founded Genentech, brought two young...
From ACM Opinion
AI Is Transforming Google Search. The Rest of the Web Is Next
Yesterday, the 46-year-old Google veteran who oversees its search engine, Amit Singhal, announced his retirement. And in short order, Google revealed that Singhal's...
From ACM Opinion
Crosstown Traffic: The Bedbug Genome
In the great contest that is life, the common bedbug, Cimex lectularius, qualifies as a winner.
From ACM Opinion
When Will We Be Able to Vote Online?
Sooner or later everything seems to go online. Newspapers. TV. Radio. Shopping. Banking. Dating.
From ACM Opinion
The Step Needed to Make Virtual Reality More Real
It's one thing to play the arcade game Whac-A-Mole by swinging around an oversized mallet; it's far easier to whack those moles virtually, controlling the mallet...
From ACM Opinion
There May Be a Way to Allow Mass Surveillance and Preserve Our Privacy at the Same Time
If we've learned anything over the past few years, it's that governments will make all sorts of excuses to justify the surveillance of its citizens.
From ACM Opinion
The Language Barrier Is About to Fall
It used to be the case when I traveled abroad that I would take a little pocket dictionary that provided translations for commonly used phrases and words.
From ACM Opinion
Will Machines Eliminate s?
Yoshua Bengio leads one of the world's preëminent research groups developing a powerful AI technique known as deep learning.
From ACM Opinion