Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Why Drone Pilots Deserve Medals
The escalating dependence on drone pilots, as Maj. Dave Blair agonized in the May-June issue ofAir & Space Power Journal, is undercutting the ability to award combat...
From ACM Opinion
Obama Was Right: The Government Invented the Internet
Earlier this month, President Obama argued that wealthy business people owe some of their success to the government's investment in education and basic infrastructure...
From ACM Opinion
Are Guidelines Issued By Drone Industry an Attempt to Avoid Government Regulation?
The growing use of drones in the United States is facing firm opposition from civil liberties groups and some legislators, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. ...
From ACM Opinion
gly Buttons
I can't figure out how to watch my brother's TV. He's explained it to me a hundred times, but that's the curse of the baby-sitting uncle: It's harder to work a...
From ACM Opinion
What Fearmongers Get Wrong About Cyberwarfare
Should we worry about cyberwarfare? Judging by excessively dramatic headlines in the media, very much so. Cyberwarfare, the argument goes, might make wars easier...
From ACM Opinion
I (robot) Thee Wed
It's hard to think of a more attention-grabbing title than "Robots, Men, and Sex Tourism"—especially in the academic world.
From ACM Opinion
Is It Time To Stop Trusting Google?
Was Google's snooping on home Wi-Fi users the work of a rogue software engineer? Was it a deliberate corporate strategy? Was it simply an honest-to-goodness mistake...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Microsoft Store
Three years ago, shortly after Microsoft announced that it would launch its own retail stores, I offered the company some unsolicited advice: Copy Apple "relentlessly...
From ACM Opinion
The Troll Toll
When hospitals come upon a technology with a proven track record of saving lives, you'd expect a flood of investment to expand its use, and a race by manufacturers...
From ACM Opinion
Darwin's Devices
When I tell people that I work on "evolving robots," their common response is to joke—semi-seriously—about Skynet or some other sci-fi nightmare in which machines...
From ACM News
Your Kinect Is Watching You
There is a wave of concern—completely justified, to my mind—over the privacy implications of our increasing reliance on Facebook and Google. What most people don’t...
From ACM Opinion
I Love You, Killer Robots
It was way back in May 2010 that I first spotted the flying drones that will take over the world. They were in a video that Daniel Mellinger, one of the robots'...
From ACM Opinion
2011 Was a Terrible Year For Tech
If you read tech criticism often, there’s a good chance that you’ve come upon a staple of the form that I like to call the "mommy dearest" review.
From ACM Opinion
The End of the Credit Card?
A new app called Card Case foretells a world without cash and plastic.
From ACM Opinion
Will Robots Steal Your Job?
If you're taking a break from work to read this article, I've got one question for you: Are you crazy? I know you think no one will notice, and I know that everyone...
From ACM News
The Death of Booting p
Remember "booting up"? It was the first thing you did every morning—you waited two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even longer while your computer ran through...
From ACM Opinion
Will Amazon's Recent Server Failures Slow the Rise of Cloud Computing?
Last Thursday morning around 5 a.m. eastern time, Amazon suffered a major data center outage. These sorts of outages happen now and then, but they seldom makewhy...
From ACM News
Japan Has Shifted 13 Feet!
What does Japan's earthquake mean for GPS? Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake was so powerful that it actually widened Japan. While parts of the country barely...
From ACM Opinion