A.I. Versus M.D.
A story examining what happens when artificial intelligence gets better than human doctors at medical diagnosis.
Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and the Feud Over Killer Robots
A look at the debates raging amongst Silicon Valley leaders about the potential dangers of AI.
The complete history of the IBM PC, part one: The deal of the century
A detailed look at the birth and early childhood of the personal computer. http://www.bit.ly/arstechnica-ibm
How Aristotle Created the Computer
A piece looking at the history of computers through ideas, rather than through devices – tracing the path from Aristotelian logic to computer science.
The ruins of Mosul have exposed the future of high-tech Warfare
The detritus of Daesh’s occupation reveals hacked-together weapons of all sorts.
To catch a paedophile, you only need to look at their hands
A look at the identification techniques designed to help prosecutions against paedophiles.
Google Maps’ Moat
A cartographer produces a deep dive into the extraordinary level of detail being built into Google Maps and the methodology behind it. The piece provides a valuable insight into cartography in the digital age and its impact on technology.
Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble
Talk about the Bitcoin bubble and fortunes made and lost is one thing (cf. the news this week that rapper 50 Cent was paid in Bitcoin for an album, forgot about it, and is now $8m richer), but this insightful piece proposes that the blockchain technology behind it can unlock things of far greater value.
Superintelligence: The idea that eats smart people
An absorbing rebuttal of the persuasive ‘computer-destroys-humanity’ disaster scenarios put forward by artificial intelligence skeptics, alongside a look at some of the traps machine learning obsessives fall into.
The Internet Apologizes
A conversation with 13 “architects” of the internet as it is today, with employment histories at Google, Facebook, Uber and other tech leviathans. The piece explores, in 15 steps, how apparently idealistic intentions resulted in today’s messy state of affairs.