Communications of the ACM
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How the “Frontier” Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been billed as the next frontier of humanity: the newly available expanse whose exploration …
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Who plays nice? Who plays rough?
I have a confession to make. I am one of these people who can’t watch a TV show like Games of throne because there is too much evil. In fact, I generally cringe...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Infinite storage: we are almost there…
Two years ago, I wrote a blog post called What is infinite storage? The blog post was a response to a Physics professor and colleague of mine who objected to my...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
People who make you feel stupid…
In his latest book, David and Goliath, Gladwell points out not everything is as it appears with respect to prestige and strength. For example, when you look at...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
We need more than spam filters: we need bona fide assistants!
I don’t know how other professionals behave, but if you email a researcher at 11pm or even 2am, there is a good chance he will get back to you within two minutes...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Toward Star Trek economics
Characters in the Star Trek universe often claim that their future Earth has abolished money. Everyone gets what he needs and nobody works for money. Unfortunately...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
What are the genuinely useful ideas in programming?
The software industry is probably the most dynamic and innovation of all industries. However, many people also try to convince us to adapt new ideas despite their...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The written word took over the world
Whereas human beings are geared genetically toward spoken languages, written languages are an acquired ability. In this sense, it is a high-level ability. For centuries...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Why can’t you find a job with a Stanford computer science PhD?
To many of my older colleagues, the idea that you possibly couldn’t find a job with a good degree, let alone a PhD, is unthinkable. And what about a promising young...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
What do computer scientists know about performance?
Scientists make predictions and are judged on these predictions. If you study global warming, then your job is to predict the climate for the next few decades....
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
To solve hard problems, you need to use bricolage
People who think that they can design efficient solutions in the abstract, effectively believe in Oracles. That is, they somehow believe that from their desk, and...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Are 8-bit or 16-bit counters faster than 32-bit counters?
Programmers often want to count things. They typically use 32-bit counters (e.g., the int type in Java). But what if you are counting small numbers? Maybe a 16-bit...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
To succeed, adopt the post-industrial view
From time to time, students ask me wether such degree or certificate in computer science will help them get a good job. There is no shortage of studies showing...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Funding science: When bureaucrats get out of control
Throughout most of the world, scientists are almost entirely dependent on one source of funding: their government. So every few years (or more often), professors...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Picking N distinct numbers at random: how to do it fast?
To test my algorithms, I like to generate synthetic data. To do so, I often need to generate distinct randomly chosen numbers from a range of values. For example...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Privacy and the Internet: Is Facebook evil?
For several of my classes, I open Facebook groups so that my students can exchange online. In some instances, it has worked great. Facebook tends to do a better...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Honey bees are not going extinct
There is much argument about what science is. To some people, it appears to be mostly the belief that information should be derived reputed sources. That is, if...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Big-O notation and real-world performance
Classical Newtonian mechanics is always mathematically consistent. However, Newtonian mechanics assumes that bodies move without friction and that we stay far from...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Should computer scientists run experiments?
Jeffrey Ullman, a famous computer science professor, published an essay pushing back about the need to run experiments in computer science. Apparently, some conference...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Fast integer compression in Java
Last year, we published a fast C++ library to quickly compress and decompress arrays of integers. Out of habit, I ported it to Java and published it under the name...
From Daniel Lemire's Blog