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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectComputers And Society
authorThe New Yorker
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Better Business Through Sci-Fi
From ACM Opinion

Better Business Through Sci-Fi

About five years ago, Ari Popper enrolled in a course on science-fiction writing at the University of California, Los Angeles, hoping to distract himself from the...

Teddy Roosevelt Wouldn't ­nderstand the E.u.'s Antitrust Fine Against Google
From ACM Opinion

Teddy Roosevelt Wouldn't ­nderstand the E.u.'s Antitrust Fine Against Google

Back in 1980, Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago economist, starred in a public-television series called "Free to Choose," in which he presented his free...

Before the Internet
From ACM Opinion

Before the Internet

Before the Internet, you would just sit in an armchair with a book open on your lap, staring into space or staring at a decorative broom on the wall—kind of shifting...

How to Call B.s. on Big Data: A Practical Guide
From ACM Opinion

How to Call B.s. on Big Data: A Practical Guide

"Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you," the Oxford philosophy professor John Alexander Smith told...

There's Nowhere to Hide on the Internet
From ACM Opinion

There's Nowhere to Hide on the Internet

Sometime before dawn on March 29th, not too many hours after Congress approved legislation that allows Internet-service providers to sell your browsing historyInternet...

What If We Had Perfect Robot Referees
From ACM Opinion

What If We Had Perfect Robot Referees

Last month, Mark Clattenburg, who is generally regarded as one of the finest referees in professional soccer, left England's Premier League for a better-paying...

Nasa's Overlooked Duty to Look Inward
From ACM Opinion

Nasa's Overlooked Duty to Look Inward

In 1942, not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the poet Archibald MacLeish wrote an essay called "The Image of Victory," in which he asked what winning the...

The Hype, and Hope, of Artificial Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

The Hype, and Hope, of Artificial Intelligence

Earlier this month, on his HBO show "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver skewered media companies' desperate search for clicks.

Space, Climate Change, and the Real Meaning of Theory
From ACM Opinion

Space, Climate Change, and the Real Meaning of Theory

I used to be an astronaut, a spacewalker on the International Space Station.

Why Facebook Is Really Blocking the Ad Blockers
From ACM Opinion

Why Facebook Is Really Blocking the Ad Blockers

Ads can seem like the bane of the Internet.

Could Brain Training Prevent Dementia?
From ACM Opinion

Could Brain Training Prevent Dementia?

It's been a lousy couple of years for researchers who study the effects of computerized brain training.

Waiting For Gödel
From ACM Opinion

Waiting For Gödel

In June of 1975, the Office of the White House Press Secretary announced President Gerald R. Ford’s picks for the National Medal of Science. One went to the Austrian...

What Are the Odds We Are Living in a Computer Simulation?
From ACM Opinion

What Are the Odds We Are Living in a Computer Simulation?

Last week, Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and other cutting-edge companies, took a surprising question at the Code Conference, a technology...

What Would Happen If G.p.s. Failed?
From ACM Opinion

What Would Happen If G.p.s. Failed?

The radio signal that is the lifeblood of the Global Positioning System originates from a constellation of twenty-four satellites, orbiting more than twelve thousand...

Lessons from Apple vs. the F.b.i.
From ACM Opinion

Lessons from Apple vs. the F.b.i.

It's welcome news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has dropped its legal effort to force Apple to help it create a method of accessing data on a lockedSan...

Werner Herzog Talks Virtual Reality
From ACM Opinion

Werner Herzog Talks Virtual Reality

"I'm a skeptic of 3-D, but when I saw the paintings I knew I had to use it," Werner Herzog told Judith Thurman in 2010, after the New York première of his documentary...

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying
From ACM Opinion

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying

This summer, American Psychologist, the official journal of the American Psychological Association, released a special issue on the topic of bullying and victimization...

Why Companies Won't Learn From the T-Mobile/experian Hack
From ACM Opinion

Why Companies Won't Learn From the T-Mobile/experian Hack

Last Thursday, John Legere, the C.E.O. of T-Mobile, joined the ranks of the dozens of chief executives who, in the past few years, have had to inform their customers...

Two Paths Toward Our Robot Future
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...

In Search of the Keys to the Virtual City
From ACM Opinion

In Search of the Keys to the Virtual City

I'm not the first man to believe that he might fix London.
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