Communications of the ACM
You Are Already Living Inside a Computer
Suddenly, everything is a computer. Phones, of course, and televisions. Also toasters and door locks, baby monitors and juicers…
From ACM Opinion
The Fake-News Fallacy
On the evening of October 30, 1938, a seventy-six-year-old millworker in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, named Bill Dock heard something terrifying on the radio.
From ACM Opinion
The Darkening Web: Misinformation Is the Strongest Cyberweapon
In late June, I was leaving for a flight from Kiev's Boryspil Airport as news broke that Ukraine was the victim of another massive cyberattack.
From ACM Opinion
What James Damore Got Wrong About Gender Bias in Computer Science
In August Google employee James Damore made the news and even Wikipedia by publishing his speculation that female software engineers are underrepresented due to...
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence: The Future Is Superintelligent
Max Tegmark is a renowned physicist. He is also the irrepressibly optimistic co-founder of the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: "Technology...
From ACM Opinion
How We Won Gold in the Cyborg Olympics' Brain Race
In October 2016, inside a sold-out arena in Zurich, a man named Numa Poujouly steered his wheelchair up to the central podium.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Computing Depends on Making It Reversible
For more than 50 years, computers have made steady and dramatic improvements, all thanks to Moore's Law—the exponential increase over time in the number of transistors...
From ACM Opinion
Is the Power Grid Getting More Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks?
Two weeks ago it was cyberattacks on the Irish power grid. Last month it was a digital assault on U.S. energy companies, including a nuclear power plant. Back in...
From ACM Opinion
What I Learned at Gerrymandering Summer Camp
At 6'5", Aaron Dennis towers over the whiteboard beside him.
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
How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made
We inhabit a small planet orbiting a medium-sized star about two-thirds of the way out from the center of the Milky Way galaxy—around where Track 2 on an LP record...
From ACM Opinion
Blossom: A Handmade Approach to Social Robotics from Cornell and Google
As excited as we are about the forthcoming generation of social home robots (including Jibo, Kuri, and many others), it's hard to ignore the fact that most of them...
From ACM Opinion
How Quantum Mechanics Can Change Computing
In early July, Google announced that it will expand its commercially available cloud computing services to include quantum computing.
From ACM Opinion
A Reverie for the Voyager Probes, Humanity's Calling Cards
In the shadow, one might say, of the Great American Eclipse, a major anniversary in the history of space exploration—and indeed cosmic consciousness—is being celebrated...
From Communications of the ACM
Is That Social Bot Behaving Unethically?
A procedure for reflection and discourse on the behavior of bots in the context of law, deception, and societal norms.
From Communications of the ACM
Multitasking Without Thrashing
Lessons from operating systems teach how to do multitasking without thrashing.
From Communications of the ACM
Why Agile Teams Fail Without UX Research
Failures to involve end users or to collect comprehensive data representing user needs are described and solutions to avoid such failures are proposed.
From Communications of the ACM