Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence as a Threat
Ebola sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Bird flu and SARS also send shivers down my spine.
From ACM Opinion
Demystifying the Mooc
When massive open online courses first grabbed the spotlight in 2011, many saw in them promise of a revolutionary force that would disrupt traditional higher education...
From ACM Opinion
When Iphones Ring, the Economy Listens
Gloomy economic news and the wild swings of the stock market may be getting you down. But at least you can count on this: We’ve entered the sweet spot of the ...
From ACM Opinion
Christine Kenneally's 'invisible History of the Human Race'
Of Christine Kenneally’s father’s father—a man neither Kenneally nor her father ever knew, a man who did the deed requisite to reproduction and promptly vanished—she...
From ACM Opinion
To Siri, With Love
Just how bad a mother am I? I wondered, as I watched my 13-year-old son deep in conversation with Siri.
From ACM Opinion
The August Smart Lock Shows Why You Should Stick With Dumb Keys
You almost certainly don't need a digital smart lock for your front door.
From ACM Opinion
Why Germans Are Afraid of Google
These days Germany is known for being many things: a leader in clean technology, a manufacturing powerhouse, Europe's foreign policy center.
From ACM Opinion
Why Is Our Sci-Fi So Glum About A.i.?
When I was 12, I invented a superhero named Boy Genius, a guy my age who awakens one morning with access to 100 percent of his brain power.
From ACM Opinion
The Magic in Apple's Devices? The Heart
During the last seismic Apple announcement, in 2010, I was at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco as Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, a device he...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent
When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was known to call journalists to either pat them on the back for a recent article or, more often than not, explain how they...
From ACM Opinion
A nified Theory
For the last half-century we've had a popular notion that our intellectual culture is sundered in two—the literary and the scientific.
From ACM Opinion
Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns
Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager who was shot during an encounter with police in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, was recorded by a convenience store surveillance camera...
From ACM Opinion
Security Secrets, Dated but Real
Was the National Cryptologic Museum designed using a code of some kind?
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Robot Caregivers
Each time I make a house call, I stay much longer than I should.
From ACM Opinion
The Trouble With Brain Science
Are we ever going to figure out how the brain works?
From ACM Opinion
Should Facebook Manipulate sers?
Should we worry that technology companies can secretly influence our emotions?
From ACM Opinion
The Tech-Savvy Supreme Court
The two major technology-related decisions handed down by the Supreme Court this week have been widely greeted by people in the tech industry as one win and one...
From ACM Opinion
Every Little Byte Counts
In "On What We Can Not Do," a short and pungent essay published a few years ago, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben outlined two ways in which power operates...
From ACM Opinion