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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectTheory
authorThe New York Times
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Why Silicon Valley Shouldn't Work With the Pentagon
From ACM Opinion

Why Silicon Valley Shouldn't Work With the Pentagon

Is Silicon Valley going to war?

How to Make A.I. Human-Friendly
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...

The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains
From ACM Opinion

The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains

Something strange, scary and sublime is happening to cameras, and it's going to complicate everything you knew about pictures. Cameras are getting brains.

Welcome to the Post-Text Future
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.

Our Hackable Political Future
From ACM Opinion

Our Hackable Political Future

Imagine it is the spring of 2019. A bottom-feeding website, perhaps tied to Russia, "surfaces" video of a sex scene starring an 18-year-old Kirsten Gillibrand. ...

Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble
From ACM Opinion

Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble

The other day my barber asked me whether he should put all his money in Bitcoin. And the truth is that if he'd bought Bitcoin, say, a year ago he'd be feeling pretty...

Artificial Intelligence's 'black Box' Is Nothing to Fear
From ACM Opinion

Artificial Intelligence's 'black Box' Is Nothing to Fear

Alongside the excitement and hype about our growing reliance on artificial intelligence, there's fear about the way the technology works.

The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018
From ACM Opinion

The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018

Imagine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your...

The Bitcoin Boom: In Code We Trust
From ACM Opinion

The Bitcoin Boom: In Code We Trust

You don't need brilliant financial analysis skills to notice that Bitcoin is in a bubble.

What Reality Tv Teaches ­S About Russia's Influence Campaign
From ACM Opinion

What Reality Tv Teaches ­S About Russia's Influence Campaign

In May 2016, a Facebook page called Heart of Texas urged its nearly 254,000 followers to rise up against what it considered to be an urgent cultural menace.

There's No Good Decision in the Next Big Data Privacy Case
From ACM Opinion

There's No Good Decision in the Next Big Data Privacy Case

In 2013, United States agents served a warrant on Microsoft seeking the emails of a suspect in a drug case.

Driverless Cars Made Me Nervous. Then I Tried One.
From ACM Opinion

Driverless Cars Made Me Nervous. Then I Tried One.

On my fourth day in a semi-driverless car, I finally felt comfortable enough to let it stop itself.

Facebook's Belated Awakening
From ACM Opinion

Facebook's Belated Awakening

Chastened by criticism that Facebook had turned a blind eye to Russia's manipulation of the social network to interfere in the 2016 election, the company's executives...

Facebook's Ad Scandal Isn't a 'fail,' It's a Feature
From ACM Opinion

Facebook's Ad Scandal Isn't a 'fail,' It's a Feature

What does it take to advertise on Facebook to people who openly call themselves "Jew haters" and want to know "how to burn Jews"? About $10 and 15 minutes, according...

Cassini Vanishes Into Saturn, Its Mission Celebrated and Mourned
From ACM Opinion

Cassini Vanishes Into Saturn, Its Mission Celebrated and Mourned

NASA&'s Cassini spacecraft, the intrepid robotic explorer of Saturn's magnificent beauty, ended a journey of 20 years on Friday like a shooting star streaking across...

These Are Not the Robots We Were Promised
From ACM Opinion

These Are Not the Robots We Were Promised

From the moment we humans first imagined having mechanical servants at our beck and call, we've assumed they would be constructed in our own image.

A Hunt For Ways to Combat Online Radicalization
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.

Greetings, E.t. (please Don't Murder ­s.)
From ACM Opinion

Greetings, E.t. (please Don't Murder ­s.)

On Nov. 16, 1974, a few hundred astronomers, government officials and other dignitaries gathered in the tropical forests of Puerto Rico's northwest interior, a...

Please Prove You're Not a Robot
From ACM Opinion

Please Prove You're Not a Robot

When science fiction writers first imagined robot invasions, the idea was that bots would become smart and powerful enough to take over the world by force, whether...

The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence

What worries you about the coming world of artificial intelligence?
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