Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
How Much Do the Internet Giants Really Know?
To briefly state the obvious, the Internet giants are seriously big: Google is not only the world's largest search engine, it's one of the top three email providers...
From ACM Opinion
The Mathematical Equation that Caused the Banks to Crash
It was the holy grail of investors. The Black-Scholes equation, brainchild of economists Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, provided a rational way to price a financial...
From ACM Opinion
Tides Are Changing For Web Surfers
David Weinberger has a new book out entitled Too Big to Know in which he argues that one of the implications of a comprehensively networked society is that the...
From ACM Opinion
Five Predictions For the Communications World in 2012
In the coming year, mobile Internet devices and in particular smartphones will continue to bring the biggest changes to the way we communicate. For the first...
From ACM Opinion
Programming Should Take Pride of Place in Our Schools
If we don't change the way ICT is thought about and taught, we're shutting the door on our children's futures.
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs: A Man of Contradiction and Genius
When historians look back at the life of Steve Jobs, they will chronicle a man of contradiction and genius. But for the legions of Apple fans, it's personal.
From ACM Opinion
Kids Today Need a Licence to Tinker
Back to school time and millions of British kids are heading back to classrooms to embark on the national curriculum so beloved of busybody ministers.
From ACM Opinion
Beware: Europe's 'unitary Patent' Could Mean nlimited Software Patents
Just as the U.S. software industry is experiencing the long-anticipated all-out software patent wars, the European Union has a plan to follow the same course....
From ACM Opinion
Why Cctv Has Failed to Deter Criminals
I've lost track of the number of people who've asked me to comment on David Cameron's insane plan to cripple Britain's Internet in times of civil unrest by blocking...
From ACM Opinion
Why Lulzsec Had No Choice but to Disband
After just 50 days, the group said it was ceasing individual operations. Why, when you might have thought things were going so well?
From ACM Opinion
Networks Are Not Always Revolutionary
"For most artists," as the famous Tim O'Reilly aphorism has it "the problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity." To me, this is inarguably true and self-evident—the...
From ACM Opinion
Feds Versus the Hacker nderground: Army of Informers Turned By Fear
When Jeff Moss, popularly known as the Dark Tangent, started holding underground hacker conferences in Las Vegas he knew he had a problem. All previous gatherings...
From ACM Opinion
Where Will Larry Page Lead Google?
In the 10 years since the last time Larry Page was Google's chief executive, the company has changed a bit. It has gone from an ambitious startup to a publicly...
From ACM Opinion
Google Is Polluting the Internet
The danger of allowing an advertising company to control the index of human knowledge is too obvious to ignore.
From ACM Opinion
Why Minority Report Was Spot On
The launch of Microsoft's new Kinect games system, which allows players to run, jump, punch and shoot without having to wear strange clothing or hold any kind of...
From ACM Opinion
How Science Became Cool
The incredible ambition of the Large Hadron Collider has fired our imagination; physicists have become cult TV stars; dramatic new pictures from space grace a million...
From ACM Opinion
Why Design Should Be Rated Alongside Science
Design education is as important to the future of the economy as the sciences, technology, mathematics and engineering, and should be given equal support.
From ACM Opinion