Communications of the ACM • 30th December 2025

Future Moves: How AI Expands Our Understanding of Human Motion

Artificial intelligence (AI) is improving understanding of how humans move and is powering advances in motion technologies: AI-based systems are giving athletes and dancers insight into the mechanics of physical and expressive movement; in clinical settings, AI is enriching approaches to injury treatment and supporting diagnosis and rehabilitation strategies for neurodegenerative diseases.

Scottish Mountaineering Press • 11th February 2025

Consistency of Snow

Consistency of Snow by Karen Emslie Winner of the 2024 Creatives Flash Nonfiction Contest

Communications of the ACM • 2nd December 2025

The Power of Persona

As AI agents and models don increasingly convincing personalities, some researchers are calling for guardrails. Developers and users alike are instructing models to express desirable character traits that suit the task in hand. Yet, the speed of change makes the consequences of humanizing AI with convincing personas hard to predict.

Communications of the ACM • 17th July 2025

What Do You Think About AI?

Understanding what the public thinks about this juggernaut AI rollout is important for legitimacy and buy-in, but can be challenging due to its scale and complexity. Researchers are using empirical methods to understand public perceptions of AI. They are uncovering variety and trends alike, and a cavernous gap between how AI experts and the public envisage AI’s future.

Communications of the ACM • 20th March 2025

Predicting the Unpredictable: The AI Outlook

The history of technological advance is characterized by disruption, yet we rarely witness a technology emerge with propensity to shock like artificial intelligence (AI).

Communications of the ACM • 4th February 2025

Disrupting Networks: Decentralization and the Fediverse

Users of social media have become increasingly sensitive to the fallibilities of centralized networks, such as X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, that are managed by a single company. Frustrations can arise as new recommendation algorithms and advertising strategies are rolled out, company priorities shift, or leadership changes. As users seek out alter...

Communications of the ACM • 19th November 2024

The AI Spy - AI and OSINT

Thousands of ordinary citizens are already using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques, whether they know it or not. Online sleuths attempt to solve crimes by scouring social media posts for clues, and dating app users run potential suitors’ profiles through a reverse image search to verify they are who they say. OSINT—once the preserve of intelligence agencies and law enforcement—is becoming accessible, and artificial intelligence (AI) is powering the change.

Communications of the ACM • 8th April 2024

Perspectives on AI from Around the Globe

The societal impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is global, yet the narrative around AI often centers around perspectives from the U.S. and Europe. Unsurprisingly—in a tech ecosystem that spans the planet—AI is powering change everywhere. Seeking a ‘snapshot’ of the global outlook for AI, we asked experts to share their thoughts about developments and challenges in their countries.

The Open Notebook • 9th May 2023

Expanding the Geographical Borders of Your Source List

Last year, while reporting a story about artificial intelligence, I had a conversation with Adji Bousso Dieng, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University and founder of The Africa I Know, a nonprofit organization that’s using media and education to inspire young Africans and improve how Africa is globally portrayed.

BBC Earth • 18th October 2022

How to be a Citizen Scientist | BBC Earth

Caring for our planet and finding solutions to the environmental threats it faces are pressing concerns for many of us. A growing number of people are now joining the effort to build a sustainable future by becoming citizen scientists.

Knowable Magazine | Annual Reviews • 30th July 2021

What will history say about Covid? Museums scurry to collect — and prepare to remember.

A worn pair of nurse’s shoes. That coronavirus model Anthony Fauci used in public briefings. Oral histories, iconic photos and social media posts. All of us are curators now, and what we preserve — as well as what we don’t — will write the pandemic story.

WIRED UK • 18th June 2018

The high-stakes race to stop the trafficking of priceless artefacts

In December 2016, David Hidalgo received a photograph of a 17th-century Peruvian painting. The unsigned artwork, of the Virgen de Guadalupe, depicts the Virgin Mary surrounded by apparitions and tells the story of her appearance to Saint Juan Diego near Mexico City in 1531. Hidalgo’s tip-off came via email from a source who had seen the painting on show at the Bowers Museum in California, where it was on loan. Hidalgo’s source suspected that the painting had been stolen.

National Geographic • 7th June 2016

Climate Change Is Making Calendars Run Amok

An array of environmental shifts in the region, such as unusual weather events, untimely glacial melts, lake bursts, and changes in animal and bird migration patterns, have thrown the calendars so far off kilter that most villagers no longer use them, and they struggle to reliably predict cues for planning agricultural and cultural activities.

The Smithsonian Magazine • 9th July 2015

To Stop Mosquito Bites, Silence Your Skin's Bacteria

Texas scientists tricked mosquitoes into skipping a blood meal by modifying the way bacteria talk to each other. Evening picnics in a park, sunset beers by a lake and warm nights with the windows open are just some of the delights of midsummer. But as dusk falls, one of the most infuriating creatures on the planet stirs: the mosquito. Outdoor activities are abandoned in an ankle-scratching frenzy and sleep is disturbed as we haplessly swat at the whining source of our torment

Communications of the ACM • 8th August 2020

We Need to Talk About Linguistic Diversity in AI

Our learned ability to use words to construct sentences that convey information, ideas, and emotions in an organized way makes us unique among animals. However, language has significance beyond communication. It is an expression of cultural identity, a demonstration of the existence of communities of peoples.

OneZero • 17th June 2019

Why Machines Need to Dream

Dreams are, for the most part, delightful. As we sleep, visual and audio fragments combine into nonsensical snippets and epic narratives. Loosely recalled moments merge with vivid, imagined scenes; we interact with characters known and characters conjured up; we explore our fantasies and, sometimes, face our fears. Yet sleeping and dreaming do not exist for our nocturnal pleasure alone.

Huck Magazine • 3rd October 2015

A countercultural history of walking

“To be away from home, yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, yet to remain hidden from the world — such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.” ~ Charles Baudelaire Take four bones: a femur, patella, tibia and fibula. Wrap in muscle, bind with tendons. Repeat.

Aeon • 23rd February 2016

How the wind blows us on and off life’s course — Karen Emslie — Essays

Every time strong southwesterlies blew across the Shetland Islands, my wooden house shook and the windows buckled. When a big gale was forecast, everything was tied down, salt-laden spray filled the air, and white horses reared up and thrashed around on the navy sea. Some storms plucked slates from roofs and embedded them in gardens like daggers; one night my friend’s caravan flew away.

National Geographic • 13th April 2016

These People Have a Mind-Bending Way to Navigate

The door of Sivek’s house looks out on a rising slope. But when he walks away from the door toward the rear of the building, he is walking “uphill”—even though the floor is flat. That’s because in Sivek’s tongue, indoor space is defined by imaginary slopes that are totally distinct from the world outside. This is one of the most striking features of the Yupno language, spoken by around 8,000 people in the Finisterre mountain range of Papua New Guinea. While many languages around the world make

OneZero • 14th June 2019

This Alternative to Google Maps Aims to Protect Indigenous Land

Zoom in on Peru with Google Maps in satellite view and you’ll see a country comprised of three distinct zones. Sediment-rich rivers, including the Amazon, serpentine through the rainforest, ridges on the Andean mountains — Peru’s highland spine — look like veins, and parched deserts edge the Pacific Ocean. These diverse ecosystems are home to equally diverse indigenous peoples: around 55 groups, speaking 47 languages, according to the Denmark-based International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs