Communications of the ACM
Data Brokers Are a Threat to Democracy
The unregulated practice of data brokerage is incredibly dangerous and harmful, and policymakers can ignore it no longer.
From ACM Opinion
The Tax Overhaul Could Cripple the .s. as a Leader in Science
The graduate education system in the United States is rightly considered the best in the world. But Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a bill...
From ACM Opinion
What I Learned from the People Who Built the Atom Bomb
When I began my career in elementary particle physics, the great figures who taught and inspired me had been part of the Manhattan Project generation that developed...
From ACM Opinion
Connectivity Hacking Back Makes a Comeback—but It's Still a Really Bad Idea
In spite of the billions of dollars companies collectively spend each year on cyberdefenses, hackers keep defeating them.
From ACM Careers
Is Technology About to Decimate White-Collar Work?
Kai-Fu Lee, one of China's best-known technologists and investors, thinks artificial intelligence is about to supplant many millions of the country's office workers...
From ACM Opinion
Fiction That Gets AI Right
Even the most futuristic applications of AI, from robotic servants to instant health scans, somehow already seem familiar because they have been endless fodder...
From ACM Opinion
Smartphones Are Weapons of Mass Manipulation, and This Guy Is Declaring War on Them
If, like an ever-growing majority of people in the U.S., you own a smartphone, you might have the sense that apps in the age of the pocket-sized computer are designed...
From ACM Opinion
Oculus Chief Scientist Speaks About Virtual Reality in the Lab and on Your Face
While many of us are impatient with virtual reality—the best headsets are still too expensive, they need to be tethered to beefy computers, and there isn't all...
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
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
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
Why Google's AI Can Write Beautiful Songs but Still Can't Tell a Joke
Creating noodling piano tunes and endless configurations of cat drawings with AI may not sound like an obvious project for Google, but it makes a lot of sense to...
From ACM Opinion
The Myth of the Skills Gap
The contention that America's workers lack the skills employers demand is an article of faith among analysts, politicians, and pundits of every stripe, from conservative...
From ACM Opinion
The Enduring Legacy of Zork
In 1977, four recent MIT graduates who'd met at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science used the lab's PDP-10 mainframe to develop a computer game that captivated...
From ACM Opinion
The President of Search Giant Baidu Has Global Plans
Google and Facebook are household names around the world. Baidu? Not yet. Ya-Qin Zhang, president of China's leading search business, says Chinese companies can...
From ACM Opinion
A Reality Check For Ibm's AI Ambitions
Paul Tang was with his wife in the hospital just after her knee replacement surgery, a procedure performed on about 700,000 people in the U.S. every year.
From ACM Opinion
China's Tech Moguls Warn of Ai's Troubling Trajectory
China has seen incredible economic and social changes over the past few decades. But could the impact of artificial intelligence take the country by surprise?
From ACM Opinion
Nvidia Ceo: Software Is Eating the World, but AI Is Going to Eat Software
Tech companies and investors have recently been piling money into artificial intelligence—and plenty has been trickling down to chip maker Nvidia.
From ACM Opinion
Russian Disinformation Technology
On July 17, 2014, as passengers checked in at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, "Necro Mancer"(@666_mancer) tweeted about an unusual...
From ACM Opinion
Finding Solace in Defeat By Artificial Intelligence
Fan Hui, the European Go champion, needed some fresh air. "I don't understand myself anymore."
From ACM Opinion