Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2020
From ACM Opinion
Machine Learning Engineers Will Not Exist In 10 Years.
The landscape is evolving quickly.
From ACM Opinion
Professor Leads COVID-19 Test Site Mapping Effort
Big data and artificial intelligence expert Jim Kyung-Soo Liew is spearheading a mapping effort conducted by software engineers and student volunteers from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
From ACM Opinion
How Autonomous Shuttles Could Transform the College Experience
Transportation and parking remain an ongoing issue among campuses everywhere.
From ACM Opinion
Will Online Education Widen Asia's Digital Divide?
Some students may be at a disadvantage as e-learning relies heavily on home environments, experts say.
From ACM Opinion
The First Modern Pandemic
Bill Gates considers the scientific advances needed to stop COVID-19.
From ACM Opinion
Tips for Online Teaching: A Q&A With Trey Conatser
Trey Conatser, associate director of the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching at the University of Kentucky, discusses efforts to expand support services as the university moved courses online.
From ACM Opinion
Big Data Could Undermine the COVID-19 Response
Blind spots in location-tracking data can threaten both public health and human rights.
From ACM Opinion
Catherine D'Ignazio on Visualizing COVID-19 Data
Catherine D'Ignazio, assistant professor of urban science and planning at MIT, speaks about the current boom in COVID-19 data visualizations, and how data visualizers can help us make sense of the pandemic's uncertain numbers…
From ACM Opinion
Contactless Sociability and Hybrid Communities of Place
What will the world be like after the COVID-19 crisis? A contactless sociality solves problems using the digital network and physical proximity.
From ACM Opinion
Online Learning Should Return to a Supporting Role
Winner-take-all economics and cost-cutting may make many in-person lectures obsolete, but the best education continues to be intensive, expensive, and done in person.
From ACM Opinion
When School Is Online, the Digital Divide Grows Greater
Most U.S. schools are closed, with instruction shifting to the Internet. That's a problem for millions of people without reliable broadband, including 20 percent of rural students.
From ACM Opinion
Privacy Cannot Be a Casualty of the Coronavirus
Many Americans now rely on digital tools to work remotely and stay connected. They shouldn't have to sacrifice their privacy to use them.
From ACM Opinion
STEM Education Needs a Course Correction
Technical training today should not be solely in the business of making better coders but of making better people who will be able to cultivate the future.
From Communications of the ACM
The Temptation of Data-Enabled Surveillance
Are universities the next cautionary tale?
From Communications of the ACM
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Professional Work
Considering the implications of the influence of artificial intelligence given previous industrial revolutions.
From Communications of the ACM
Master of Tickets
Valuing the quality, not the quantity, of work.
From Communications of the ACM
Why Is Cybersecurity Not a Human-Scale Problem Anymore?
Examining the structure of the enterprise attack surface in view of the relative ease with which cyberdefenses can be subverted.
From Communications of the ACM
Reinventing Virtual Machines
The notion of scalable operating systems led Mendel Rosenblum to virtual machines, which have revolutionized datacenters and enabled modern cloud computing.
From Communications of the ACM
Organizing Family Support Services at ACM Conferences
Seeking to improve access to conferences and provide support for attendees with children.
From Communications of the ACM
A Taxonomy of Automated Assistants
Rating your intelligent (human or automated) assistant.