Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
It's the 30th Anniversary of the Supreme Court's Monumental Decision About Betamax
Those of us who came of age in the Internet era may not know that they owe their ability to go online to a court decision 30 years ago today about a mechanically...
From ACM Opinion
Why Snowden Won't (and Shouldn't) Get Clemency
I regard Daniel Ellsberg as an American patriot.
From ACM Opinion
The Nsa's Metadata Program Is Perfectly Constitutional
Last month two judges issued two different opinions about the NSA's controversial bulk metadata collection program.
From ACM Opinion
Whither Net Neutrality?
As the new Federal Communications Commission chairman, Tom Wheeler, has kicked up some dust in the tech community by laying the groundwork for a grand vision for...
From ACM Opinion
Metadata Isn't Going Away. Here's How to Control It.
It's a good bet that, in the next few weeks, President Obama will impose some serious reforms—and ask Congress to enact a few more—on how the National Security...
From ACM Opinion
The Evil Genius of Fantasy Football
Watching football means watching young men damage their brains.
From ACM Opinion
In Search of Planetary Intelligence
It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, "I think it would be a good idea."
From ACM Opinion
To Boldly Go Nowhere, For Now
On Aug. 20, NASA's administrator formally welcomed the newest candidates of the astronaut corpsand released a space exploration roadmap that includes robotic and...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Moocs
For a year or two there, free online classes seemed like they just might be the future of higher education.
From ACM Opinion
It's a Myth That Entrepreneurs Drive New Technology
Images of tech entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs are continually thrown at us by politicians, economists, and the media.
From ACM Opinion
Maybe Everybody Should Not Learn to Code
In the past few years, programming has gone mainstream, as celebrities from Chris Bosh to President Obama jump on the "everyone should learn to code" bandwagon.
From ACM Opinion
WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold
When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder's attitude and quickly signed up to the cause.
From ACM Opinion
Justice For Alan Turing?
What do we do with the knowledge that people not all that different from ourselves have behaved with astounding stupidity and cruelty, over and over again, in the...
From ACM Opinion
The Mooc Racket
The word mooc sounds a bit like slang from Goodfellas or the affectionate shortening of the already-affectionate name of a former outfielder for the New York Mets...
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Can Reportedly Track Phones Even When They're Turned Off
The NSA has a diverse range of surveillance capabilities—from monitoring Google Maps use to sifting through millions of phone call records and spying on Web searches...
From ACM Opinion
The Taming of the Spook
On March 24, 2009, the National Security Agency’s inspector general issued a 51-page draft report on the President’s Surveillance Program, the warrantless authority...
From ACM Opinion
Connecting the Dots, Missing the Story
Could Big Data have prevented 9/11? Perhaps—Dick Cheney, for one, seems to think so.
From ACM Opinion
I Would Have Hired Edward Snowden
I don't know Edward Snowden, but I know his kind.
From ACM Opinion
Why Americans Don't Fear the Nsa
Cybersnooping was always scheduled to be an important topic during President Obama’s meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
From ACM Opinion