Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
A Journey, If You Dare, Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers
Code seems cold and objective, the raw logic of the internet, and Silicon Valley likes it that way.
From ACM Opinion
Don't Fight the Robots. Tax Them.
When Bill Gates floated the idea of imposing a tax on robots a couple of years ago, Lawrence Summers, a former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, called...
From ACM Opinion
The Two Codes Your Kids Need to Know
A few years ago, the leaders of the College Board, the folks who administer the SAT college entrance exam, asked themselves a radical question: Of all the skills...
From ACM Opinion
The Robots Have Descended on Trump Country
The growing use of work robots and the deployment of artificial intelligence have been most disruptive in just those areas of the country that provided President...
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence Hits the Barrier of Meaning
You've probably heard that we're in the midst of an A.I. revolution.
From ACM Opinion
What Isaac Asimov Taught s About Predicting the Future
In February, the spaceflight company founded by Elon Musk conducted a test launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which successfully sent its payload into orbit around...
From ACM Opinion
Why Made in China 2025 Will Succeed, Despite Trump
China will succeed in building a powerful technology industry that will rival the United States, even if President Trump starts a trade war to stop it.
From ACM Opinion
Why Silicon Valley Must Go to War
Should technologists prevent their tools from being used to wage war? This question was answered with a furious yes at Google recently, when more than 3,000 employees ...
From ACM Opinion
How to Make A.I. Human-Friendly
For a field that was not well known outside of academia a decade ago, artificial intelligence has grown dizzyingly fast. Tech companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing...
From ACM Opinion
How to Monitor Fake News
The indictment of 13 Russians filed on Friday by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election,...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Post-Text Future
I'll make this short: The thing you're doing now, reading prose on a screen, is going out of fashion.
From ACM Opinion
A Hunt For Ways to Combat Online Radicalization
Law enforcement officials, technology companies and lawmakers have long tried to limit what they call the "radicalization" of young people over the internet.
From ACM Opinion
Google, Not the Government, Is Building the Future
One persistent criticism of Silicon Valley is that it no longer works on big, world-changing ideas.
From ACM Opinion
The Trump Administration's War on Science
"Think of the marvels we can achieve if we simply set free the dreams of our people," President Trump said in his speech to Congress last month, after summoning...
From ACM Opinion
No, Robots Aren't Killing the American Dream
Defenders of globalization are on solid ground when they criticize President Trump's threats of punitive tariffs and border walls.
From ACM Opinion
Silicon Valley Reels After Trump's Election
Silicon Valley's luminaries woke up Wednesday morning to a darkened new global order, one that the ceaseless optimism of their tech-powered visions seemed suddenly...
From ACM Opinion
We Went to the Grace Hopper Celebration. Here's What We're Bringing Back
Members of The New York Times Developers recently made their first group trip to the Grace Hopper Celebration. At 15,000 attendees, GHC is the world's largest gathering...
From ACM Opinion
The Time I Went on Border Patrol in a Virtual Reality World
I found myself on a desolate desert road, in front of a man who was leaning against the hood of a banged-up sedan and next to a United States Border Patrol agent...
From ACM Opinion
Jobs Threatened By Machines: A Once 'stupid' Concern Gains Respect
They replaced horses, didn't they? That's how the late, great economist Wassily Leontief responded 35 years ago to those who argued technology would never really...
From ACM Opinion