Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Third Revolution in Warfare
First there was gunpowder. Then nuclear weapons. Next: artificially intelligent weapons.
From ACM Opinion
Video Doesn't Capture Truth
The White House has revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, after a testy exchange between the reporter and President Trump...
From ACM Opinion
Nobody's Cellphone Is Really That Secure
Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that the Russians and the Chinese were eavesdropping on President Donald Trump's personal cellphone and using the...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism
A barista gets burned at work, buys first-aid cream at Target, and later that day sees a Facebook ad for the same product.
From ACM Opinion
How the Enlightenment Ends
Three years ago, at a conference on transatlantic issues, the subject of artificial intelligence appeared on the agenda. I was on the verge of skipping that session—it...
From ACM Opinion
The Era of Fake Video Begins
In a dank corner of the internet, it is possible to find actresses from Game of Thrones or Harry Potter engaged in all manner of sex acts. Or at least to the world...
From ACM Opinion
My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data
For a spell during 2010 and 2011, I was a virtual rancher of clickable cattle on Facebook.
From ACM Opinion
Russia's Troll Operation Was Not That Sophisticated
It might be nice for Democrats and #NeverTrumpers to believe that Russia's troll factory brought Donald Trump the 2016 Presidential Election.
From ACM Opinion
China's Dystopian Tech Could Be Contagious
For all the particularities of life in China, its big cities offer a familiar cosmopolitanism.
From ACM Opinion
My Pacemaker Is Tracking Me from Inside My Body
A month before turning 34, I received an unexpected birthday gift: a cloud-connected pacemaker.
From ACM Opinion
The New Way Your Computer Can Be Attacked
On January 3, the world learned about a series of major security vulnerabilities in modern microprocessors. Called Spectre and Meltdown, these vulnerabilities were...
From ACM Opinion
8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018
It was a very strange year for technology companies. They have become a "bipartisan whipping boy," a new sexist institution, responsible for the muddying of the...
From ACM Opinion
Does Facebook Even Know How to Control Facebook?
Later today, executives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter will go before the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about the ways that Russian operatives used...
From ACM Opinion
What Facebook Did to American Democracy
In the media world, as in so many other realms, there is a sharp discontinuity in the timeline: before the 2016 election, and after.
From ACM News
The Coming Software Apocalypse
There were six hours during the night of April 10, 2014, when the entire population of Washington State had no 911 service.
From ACM Opinion
What, Exactly, Were Russians Trying to Do With Those Facebook Ads?
Many questions remain about the ads purchased by Russian-linked accounts during the 2016 presidential election.
From ACM Opinion
You Are Already Living Inside a Computer
Suddenly, everything is a computer. Phones, of course, and televisions. Also toasters and door locks, baby monitors and juicers, doorbells and gas grills. Even ...
From ACM Opinion
When Companies Get Hacked, Should They Be Allowed to Hack Back?
There is an old debate (at least, counting in internet years) that tends to crop up after major cybersecurity breaches such as the widespread WannaCry ransomware...
From ACM Opinion
Donald Trump's 'impenetrable Cybersecurity' Is Pure Fantasy
Nothing connected to the internet is safe from hackers. And I mean nothing.
From ACM Opinion