Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
What Science-Fiction Gadget Would Be Most Valuable in Real Life?
Nicole Perlman, screenwriter, Guardians of the Galaxy: As someone who’s both accident-prone and constantly putting her foot in her mouth, my first thought is the...
From ACM Opinion
Two Paths Toward Our Robot Future
In 1970, Life magazine published an article about a Stanford University research project that had resulted in the construction of what it called the first-ever...
From ACM Opinion
How Tetris Explains the Promise of the ltimate Algorithm
Pedro Domingos is a serious guy with big ambitions.
From ACM Opinion
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love A.i.
The distinction between man and machine is under siege.
From ACM Opinion
We're on the Brink of a Revolution in Crazy-Smart Digital Assistants
Here's a quick story you’ve probably heard before, followed by one you probably haven't.
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's Cyborg Virtual Assistant Is Learning from Its Trainers
Late last month a few hundred lucky users of Facebook's mobile messaging app got an unusual new contact to talk with: M, a virtual assistant powered by a mixture...
From ACM Opinion
Brynjolfsson and Mcafee: The Jobs that AI Can't Replace
At the heart of capitalism is the concept of creative destruction.
From ACM Opinion
Do We Need to Prepare For the Robot prising?
For most of my life, I've been disappointed in robots.
From ACM Opinion
Making AI Work in the Real World
Until recently, AI seemed firmly stuck in the realm of science fiction.
From ACM Opinion
Mark Zuckerberg and the End of Language
Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg hosted an online Q&A session on his personal Facebook page.
From ACM Opinion
Why Neuroscience Needs Hackers
There was a time when neuroscientists could only dream of having such a problem.
From ACM Opinion
How Close Are We Really to a Robot-Run Society?
From Rosie, the Jetsons' robot maid, to Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg in The Terminator, popular culture has frequently conceived of robots as having a human-like...
From ACM Opinion
Move Over, Siri—the Next Generation of Virtual Assistants Is Almost Here
Virtual voice-controlled assistants such as Siri, Cortana and Google Now are magical.
From ACM Opinion
The Amazingly Accurate Futurism of 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey" documents in nearly scientific detail exactly that: the story of how the iconic science-fiction film came...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Carplay Review: Siri's Finally on the Right Road
I take back all—OK most—of the expletives I’ve ever hurled at Siri.
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