Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Apple Needs More Than A Good Lawyer in China
Apple has no problem getting Chinese consumers to desire its products, as a near-riot outside its Beijing store showed in January. But the U.S. tech giant has been...
From ACM Opinion
Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories
In its early days, the Web was often imagined as a global clearinghouse—a new type of library, with the sum total of human knowledge always at our fingertips.
From ACM Opinion
You Need To Learn How To Program
If you're looking for a New Year's resolution, let me suggest an idea that you might not have considered: You should learn computer programming. Specifically,...
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
Occupy the Net!
What would George Orwell make of Facebook? Nothing really: His account would probably be deactivated by the company. If he were lucky, he would be told to produce...
From ACM Opinion
Blogging the Stanford Machine Learning Class
After three weeks of frustrating math dealing with dull statistics problems, we’re on to frustrating math dealing with "neural networks"—models of how the cells...
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
Good Touch, Bad Touch
The iconic iPhone interface tarnishes the legacy of Steve Jobs.
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 Opinion
Not Sharing Is Caring
Mark Zuckerberg wants you to share. He doesn't much care if you want to share. Sharing, in Zuckerberg's view, has morphed from an affirmative act—that video was...
From ACM News
Can Brain Research Keep S Safe?
Human conflict is often associated with the emergence of a new science or technology. The Civil War's Gatling gun changed battlefield tactics and led to modern...
From ACM Opinion
What Constitutes an Act of Cyberwar?
Before we get to that, there's a clue in the spelling of the word: cyberwar instead of cyber war. The U.S. Defense Department has determined that cyber is a fifth...
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
Google's Instant Pages and the Joys of a Computer that Can Read Your Mind
Chrome is reading my mind. When I type a search query in Google's Web browser, it offers me the most likely results right in the address bar. It doesn't justWikipedia...
From ACM Opinion
Why Twitter Should Double Its Character Limit
Five years ago this month, Twitter opened itself up to the public. The new service, initially called Twttr, was born out of software engineer Jack Dorsey's fascination...
From ACM Opinion
Why Facebook Can't Match Ravelry, the Social Network For Knitters
The best social network you've (probably) never heard of is one-five-hundredth the size of Facebook. It has no video chat feature, it doesn't let you check in...
From ACM News