Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Mounting Human and Environmental Costs of Generative AI
Planetary impacts, escalating financial costs, and labor exploitation all factor.
From ACM Opinion
No, We Don't Have Living, Reproducing Robots
Kinematic self-replication is interesting research, but it isn't reproduction or replication
From ACM Opinion
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Julia Programming Language
Fortran has ruled scientific computing, but Julia emerged for large-scale numerical work.
From ACM Opinion
The Roger Stone Indictment Shows a Conspiratorial Comedy of Opsec Errors
Former Trump advisor and self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" Roger Stone—the man with a Richard Nixon tattoo on his back and a penchant for playing the evil genius—was...
From ACM News
The Snowden Legacy: What's Changed, Really?
Digital privacy has come a long way since June 2013. In the five years since documents provided by Edward Snowden became the basis for a series of revelations that...
From ACM Opinion
Trump Says He Will 'Address' Google's 'Suppressing' of Conservative News
On Tuesday morning, the 45th president of the United States woke up around 5:30am Eastern Time and decided to begin his Tuesday by berating the "Fake News Media...
From ACM Opinion
We Know You Hate the Internet of Things, but It's Saving Megafauna from Poachers
For much of this decade, organizations seeking to protect wildlife have attempted to use emerging technology as a conservation tool, allowing small numbers of people...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Has Serious Health Problems, Mozilla Foundation Report Finds
As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepared to face nearly half of the Senate today to explain what went wrong with his company's handling of personal data for millions...
From ACM Opinion
Trump's Budget Wants the S to Stop Watching the Planet
Today, the Trump administration released a proposed budget that called for massive cuts to science research across the federal government.
From ACM Opinion
Why Cops Won't Need a Warrant to Pull the Data Off Your Autonomous Car
Lt. Saul Jaeger, who commands the traffic unit at the Mountain View Police Department, remembers the first time a few years ago when he was given a demo of Waymo's...
From ACM Opinion
License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch
Wow, that 2017, though. Quite a year. Let's grab a Juicero and take a moment to reflect on the utter dumpster fires that we've witnessed over the past 12 months...
From ACM Opinion
The Real Lesson of that Self-Driving Shuttle's First-Day Accident
Wednesday was supposed to be the triumphant launch of a free, driverless shuttle in downtown Las Vegas.
From ACM Opinion
Hacking the Vote: Threats Keep Changing, but Election It Sadly Stays the Same
The outcome of the 2016 presidential election is history. But allegations of voter fraud, election interference by foreign governments, and intrusions into state...
From ACM Opinion
The End of an Era Came Long Before the End of Cassini
I have now been writing about science for nearly a dozen years, which means my career more or less overlaps with that of the Cassini probe.
From ACM Opinion
Tracking the Spread of Culture Through Folktales
There's a reason why the premise of American Gods is so alluring: the US is home to a wild and glorious mishmash of gods, folktales, and cultural heritage.
From ACM Opinion
Zuckerberg and Musk Are Both Wrong About AI
Back in 2015, a group of business leaders and scientists published an "open letter" about how controlling artificial superintelligence might be the most urgent...
From ACM Opinion
First the Cloud, Now AI Takes on the Scientific Method
Back when I was doing research, one of my advisors once joked that, if you wait long enough, you can produce an old result using new methods, manage to get it published...
From ACM Opinion
You Won't Believe What Nasa Hid from US This Year
As the federal agency at the forefront of exploring outer space, NASA winds up being the front door for all manner of alien conspiracies.
From ACM Opinion
Here's What a 'digital Miranda Warning' Might Look Like
Anyone who has ever watched an American crime movie or television show can practically recite the Miranda warning by heart, even if they don't know its official...
From ACM Opinion