Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Decline of Wikipedia
The sixth most widely used website in the world is not run anything like the others in the top 10.
From ACM Opinion
As We May Type
In 1984, the personal-computer industry was still small enough to be captured, with reasonable fidelity, in a one-volume publication, the Whole Earth Software Catalog...
From ACM Opinion
The Lessons of Aaron Swartz
On the day after Aaron Swartz's death in January, President Reif and I spoke about how MIT might respond to the breaking news of his suicide.
From ACM Opinion
Cryptographers Have an Ethics Problem
Last week, I visited the MIT computer science department looking for a very famous cryptographer.
From ACM Opinion
The Paradox of Wearable Technologies
Ever talk to someone at a party or conference reception only to discover that the person you are talking to is constantly scanning the room, looking this way and...
From ACM Opinion
Douglas Engelbart’s nfinished Revolution
Doug Engelbart knew that his obituaries would laud him as "Inventor of the Mouse."
From ACM Opinion
Sebastian Thrun on the Future of Learning
Sebastian Thrun has worn many hats in the tech world: Stanford research professor, founder of Google's X Labs, where he oversaw the development of self-drivingUdacity...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's New Mobile Os Is All About Ive
For Apple, there's a lot riding on iOS 7, the newest version of its mobile software and the first refresh overseen by veteran industrial design head Jonathan Ive...
From ACM Opinion
Proceed with Caution Toward the Self-Driving Car
Driving on Interstate 495 toward Boston in a Ford Fusion one chilly afternoon in March, I did something that would've made even my laid-back long-ago driving instructor...
From ACM Opinion
Why Obama's Brain-Mapping Project Matters
Last week, President Obama officially announced $100 million in funding for arguably the most ambitious neuroscience initiative ever proposed.
From ACM Opinion
Mobile Computing Is Just Getting Started
Mobile computers are spreading faster than any other consumer technology in history.
From ACM Opinion
Windows 8: Design Over sability
Windows 8 is a computer science masterpiece trapped inside a user interface kerfuffle.
From ACM Opinion
Apple’s Next Innovation: TV
Steve Jobs couldn't hide his frustration. Asked at a technology conference in 2010 whether Apple might finally turn its attention to television, he launched into...
From ACM Opinion
Geeks Are the New Guardians of Our Civil Liberties
A decade-plus of anthropological fieldwork among hackers and like-minded geeks has led me to the firm conviction that these people are building one of the most...
From ACM News
It's All About the Genes and the Brain Machines
The amount of time and money needed to sequence genomes continued to fall in 2012, perhaps to no one’s surprise.
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Has Restored the Soul of Politics
In 1979, I was an aeronautical-engineering major at San Jose State University, sneaking time in the laser lab to make holograms or running over to the computer...
From ACM Opinion
Why Jony Ive Shouldn't Kill Off Apple's Skeuomorphic Interfaces
Last week Apple fired Scott Forstall, the architect of its iOS platform, and handed his duties over to the company's chief industrial designer, Jonathan Ive. Ive...
From ACM Opinion
Where Speech Recognition Is Going
Until recently, the idea of holding a conversation with a computer seemed pure science fiction. If you asked a computer to "open the pod bay doors"—well, that was...
From ACM Opinion