Computer science

Computer scientist Stuart Russell wants to ensure that our increasingly intelligent machines remain aligned with human values.

A quantum computing pioneer explains why the near future of quantum computation may lie in simulators, not general-purpose quantum machines.

New research suggests physicists, computers and brains employ the same procedure to tease out important features from among other irrelevant bits of data.

Subhash Khot’s bold conjecture is helping mathematicians explore the precise limits of computation.

An insight borrowed from computer science suggests that evolution values both fitness and diversity.

In a watershed moment for cryptography, computer scientists have proposed a solution to a fundamental problem called “program obfuscation.”

Improvements in how densely spheres and other shapes can be packed together could lead to advances in materials science, deep space communication and theoretical physics.

The nature of computing has changed dramatically over the last decade, and more innovation is needed to weather the gathering data storm.

Scientific data sets are becoming more dynamic, requiring new mathematical techniques on par with the invention of calculus.