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Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not
From ACM Opinion

Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not

As a Japanese, I grew up watching anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion," which depicts a future in which machines and humans merge into cyborg ecstasy.

How Plausible Are All Those Mission: Impossible Gadgets, Anyway?
From ACM Opinion

How Plausible Are All Those Mission: Impossible Gadgets, Anyway?

It's been 22 years since Tom Cruise infiltrated a CIA vault suspended from a wire in the first Mission: Impossible flick.

Want Facebook to Censor Speech? Be Careful What You Wish For
From ACM Opinion

Want Facebook to Censor Speech? Be Careful What You Wish For

The only figure as capable as Donald Trump of spinning up an instant and frantic media cycle these days is Mark Zuckerberg, whose ubiquitous company can't manage...

A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora's Box for DIY Guns
From ACM Opinion

A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora's Box for DIY Guns

Five years ago, 25-year-old radical libertarian Cody Wilson stood on a remote central Texas gun range and pulled the trigger on the world's first fully 3-D-printed...

Anthony Kennedy's Retirement May Have Huge Consequences for Privacy
From ACM Opinion

Anthony Kennedy's Retirement May Have Huge Consequences for Privacy

Justice Anthony Kennedy, the current Supreme Court's longest-serving member, announced his retirement Wednesday, paving the way for Trump to shape the future America's...

A Plea for AI That Serves Humanity Instead of Replacing It
From ACM Opinion

A Plea for AI That Serves Humanity Instead of Replacing It

Sixty-two years ago this summer, Dartmouth professor John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence. Joi Ito, director of MIT's Media Lab, has come to think...

Autonomous Vehicles Might Drive Cities to Financial Ruin
From ACM Opinion

Autonomous Vehicles Might Drive Cities to Financial Ruin

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, last week, 125 mostly white, mostly male, business-card-bearing attendees crowded into a brightly lit ballroom to consider "mobility."

Going To the World Cup? Leave the Laptop at Home
From ACM Opinion

Going To the World Cup? Leave the Laptop at Home

A Russian sports official earlier this year estimated that as many as 2 million people would flock to the country during the World Cup, the month-long celebration...

Self-Driving Cars Likely Won't Steal Your Job (­ntil 2040)
From ACM Opinion

Self-Driving Cars Likely Won't Steal Your Job (­ntil 2040)

The self-driving robots are coming to transform your job. Kind of. Also, very slowly.

The Many Shades of Bad Physics
From ACM Opinion

The Many Shades of Bad Physics

What happens when you see bad physics in the world? Does it make you angry? Does it make you laugh?

The Responsibility of Immortality: Welcome to the New Transhumanism
From ACM Opinion

The Responsibility of Immortality: Welcome to the New Transhumanism

In the summer of 1990, I was running a pretty weird nightclub in the Roppongi neighborhood of Tokyo.

How Wired Lost $100,000 in Bitcoin
From ACM Opinion

How Wired Lost $100,000 in Bitcoin

Back in 2013, when you could still mine bitcoins at home, Wired was sent a small, sleek mining device manufactured by the now-defunct Butterfly Labs.

Europe's New Data Protections Will Affect You Too. Here's How.
From ACM Opinion

Europe's New Data Protections Will Affect You Too. Here's How.

Starting tomorrow, a new framework for consumer data protection goes into effect in Europe.

Facial Recognition Tech Is Creepy When It Works, And Creepier When It Doesn't
From ACM Opinion

Facial Recognition Tech Is Creepy When It Works, And Creepier When It Doesn't

For the last few years, police forces around China have invested heavily to build the world's largest video surveillance and facial recognition system, incorporating...

AI Can Help Cybersecurity, If It Can Fight Through the Hype
From ACM Opinion

AI Can Help Cybersecurity, If It Can Fight Through the Hype

Walking the enormous exhibition halls at the recent RSA security conference in San Francisco, you could have easily gotten the impression that digital defense was...

When John Doerr Brought a 'Gift' to Google's Founders
From ACM Opinion

When John Doerr Brought a 'Gift' to Google's Founders

On a fall day in 1999, in the heart of Silicon Valley, I arrived at a two-story, L-shaped structure off the 101 freeway. It was young Google's headquarters, and...

Why Police Should Monitor Social Media to Prevent Crime
From ACM Opinion

Why Police Should Monitor Social Media to Prevent Crime

In February, the ACLU of Massachusetts released a damning report detailing prejudice in social media surveillance efforts by the Boston Police Department (BPD)....

The White House Loses Its Cybersecurity Brain Trust
From ACM Opinion

The White House Loses Its Cybersecurity Brain Trust

Today, the White House confirmed that cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce will head back to the National Security Agency, where he previously ran the nation's top...

The Questions Zuckerberg Should Have Answered About Russia
From ACM Opinion

The Questions Zuckerberg Should Have Answered About Russia

Over the last two days, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned for more than 10 hours by two different Congressional committees. There was granular focus on...

The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data
From ACM Opinion

The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data

The headlines about the trade wars being touched off by President Trump's new tariffs may telegraph plenty of bombast and shots fired, but the most consequential...
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