Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Europe's Data Protection Law Is a Big, Confusing Mess
There is a growing realization that our data is under attack.
From ACM Opinion
'2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the 'ltimate Trip'
In the spring of 1964 the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was very worried. NASA was about to fly the Mariner 4 space probe past Mars.
From ACM Opinion
What '2001' Got Right
It's a testament to the lasting influence of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," which turns 50 this week, that the disc-shaped...
From ACM Opinion
How Lies Spread Online
The spread of misinformation on social media is an alarming phenomenon that scientists have yet to fully understand.
From ACM Opinion
How to Make A.I. Human-Friendly
For a field that was not well known outside of academia a decade ago, artificial intelligence has grown dizzyingly fast. Tech companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing...
From ACM Opinion
The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains
Something strange, scary and sublime is happening to cameras, and it's going to complicate everything you knew about pictures. Cameras are getting brains.
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Post-Text Future
I'll make this short: The thing you're doing now, reading prose on a screen, is going out of fashion.
From ACM Opinion
Our Hackable Political Future
Imagine it is the spring of 2019. A bottom-feeding website, perhaps tied to Russia, "surfaces" video of a sex scene starring an 18-year-old Kirsten Gillibrand. ...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Can't Resist Playing By China's Rules
Apple is selling out. It's not about the latest version of the iPhone, but the huge cache of personal data that will be going directly to the largest, and one of...
From ACM Opinion
Why the I.r.s. Fears Bitcoin
The extraordinary rise in the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has led many people to worry that this market is a giant bubble.
From ACM Opinion
The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018
Imagine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your...
From ACM Opinion
The F.c.c. Wants to Let Telecoms Cash In on the Internet
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to let Comcast, Verizon and other broadband companies turn the internet into a latter-day version of...
From ACM Opinion
What Reality Tv Teaches S About Russia's Influence Campaign
In May 2016, a Facebook page called Heart of Texas urged its nearly 254,000 followers to rise up against what it considered to be an urgent cultural menace.
From ACM Opinion
There's No Good Decision in the Next Big Data Privacy Case
In 2013, United States agents served a warrant on Microsoft seeking the emails of a suspect in a drug case.
From ACM Opinion
Driverless Cars Made Me Nervous. Then I Tried One.
On my fourth day in a semi-driverless car, I finally felt comfortable enough to let it stop itself.
From ACM Opinion
Kitchen of the Future: Smart and Fast but Not Much Fun
Wandering among the engineers and strategy directors and managers of something called "connected customer experience" at the Smart Kitchen Summit, one had to wonder...
From ACM Opinion
Would You Buy a Self-Driving Future From These Guys?
When the owner of an automated Tesla was killed in a crash last year, the carmaker's founder, Elon Musk, urged journalists to peer into the future.
From ACM Opinion
These Are Not the Robots We Were Promised
From the moment we humans first imagined having mechanical servants at our beck and call, we've assumed they would be constructed in our own image.
From ACM Opinion