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
Would You Buy a Self-Driving Future From These Guys?
When the owner of an automated Tesla was killed in a crash last year, the carmaker's founder, Elon Musk, urged journalists to peer into the future.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Dna Sequencing
Forty years ago, two papers1, 2 described the first tractable methods for determining the order of the chemical bases in stretches of DNA. Before these 1977 publications...
From ACM Opinion
The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions
We are surrounded by hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence and robotics—hysteria about how powerful they will become, how quickly, and what they...
From ACM Opinion
What Facebook Did to American Democracy
In the media world, as in so many other realms, there is a sharp discontinuity in the timeline: before the 2016 election, and after.
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Tim Cook on Iphones, Augmented Reality, and How He Plans to Change Your World
Earlier this year, video emerged of a new iPhone feature, long before it was released. It showed the phone creating a magical portal in the middle of a city street...
From ACM Opinion
The Scientist Who Spots Fake Videos
Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, specialises in detecting manipulated images and videos. Farid, who provides his...
From ACM Opinion
Is Your Bank Data Yours?
Who owns the information in your bank account? Transactions, balance history, every other detail?
From ACM Opinion
Author Franklin Foer on Controlling the Power of Big Tech
Franklin Foer is the author of World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, a critique of the power held by the big tech companies, and the way it is...
From ACM Opinion
China's AI Awakening
On a tropical island that marks the southern tip of China, a computer program called Lengpudashi is playing one-on-one poker against a dozen people at once, and...
From ACM Opinion
Why Is There No Nobel Prize in Technology?
As the world focuses its attention on this year's recipients of the planet's most prestigious prize, the Nobel, it feels like something's missing from the list:...
From ACM Opinion
Algorithms Have Already Gone Rogue
For more than two decades, Tim O'Reilly has been the conscience of the tech industry.
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.
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).
From ACM Opinion
The Absurdity of the Nobel Prizes in Science
The fact that the Nobel Prizes awarded in science have drawn controversy since their very inception hints at deep-rooted problems. The Nobels reward individuals...
From ACM Opinion
How China Is Catching p To A .s. Science & Tech Sector ncertain Of Its Future
While the U.S. remains the global leader in Science and Technology, there is little doubt that its star is fading.
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...
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...
From ACM Opinion
Trump Is Making Canada Great Again
It's no secret that the United States has long dominated cutting-edge technologies, from personal computers and biotech to smartphones and social media.
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...
From ACM Opinion