Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Our Guts May Hate Mars
Eighty thousand people recently applied for a trip to Mars, an excursion that will allegedly be funded by selling reality-TV show rights for the voyage.
From ACM Opinion
Government Plan to Build 'back Doors' For Online Surveillance Could Create Dangerous Vulnerabilities
Recently, the FBI has been attacking the "going dark" problem—that is, its inability to read all electronic communications—from both legal and technological angles...
From ACM Opinion
Google Glass Isn't Lame
I've spent the last few weeks lowering my expectations for Google Glass.
From ACM Opinion
Why I Love the National Internet Sales Tax Plan
The Internet, in the popular imagination, is supposed to be free—"the last bastion of our economy untouched by the government," as they say on Fox News.
From ACM Opinion
We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.
From ACM Opinion
How New Military Technologies Can Help Prevent the Next Boston or Newtown
This week, it's bombs. In December, it was guns.
From ACM Opinion
Save a Soccer Referee. Hire a Machine to Rule on Goals.
Referees are the worst. Anyone who plays, coaches, or watches sports will agree. They call either too little or too much. They're blind, stupid, paid off, or just...
From ACM Opinion
Can Your Boss Read Your Email?
Harvard faculty members responded with shock after the Boston Globe revealed that theuniversity’s administration had searched 16 faculty deans’ email accounts to...
From ACM Opinion
Eye-Tracking Smartphones Have Arrived. What About the Privacy Implications?
Last March, I wrote in Slate about eye-tracking, which could allow computers and smartphones of the future to collect information not only about what we read, but...
From ACM Opinion
Instead of 'dead Dropping,' Petraeus and Broadwell Should Have sed These Email Security Tricks
Having an extramarital affair in 2012 is not an easy task if you’re the chief of the world’s most renowned spy agency.
From ACM Opinion
Can We Trust Voting Machines?
Last week, a congressional report claimed that using Chinese telecommunications companies’ goods and services in the United States could threaten national security...
From ACM Opinion
The ncanny Valley of Internet Advertising
If you ask an Internet ad guy to defend himself—to explain why you, dear Web surfer, should feel comfortable letting him serve you ads based on everything you do...
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
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 Opinion
The Idiocy of Text-Message Adultery
"How did you fool so many people for so long?" a reporter asked Tiger Woods at his press conference Monday. Woods replied: "I fooled myself." And how. Woods was...
From ACM Opinion
I'm Sorry, Dave, I'm Afraid I Can't Make a -Turn
When Toyota Prius owners take their cars to the dealer under the company's latest recall, they'll likely be out of the shop in about 30 minutes. Even though the...
From ACM Opinion