Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Lesson of the Sony Hack: We Should All Jump to the 'erasable Internet'
This month's news provides yet another occasion for a friendly public-service reminder to anyone who uses a digital device to say anything to anyone, ever.
From ACM Opinion
Looking to Mars to Help Understand Changing Climates
Where now it stands the Plain of Gold did once my river flow.
From ACM Opinion
Turing's Spirit Hovers at a Restored Estate
When "Captain Ridley's shooting party" gathered here in late August 1938 as weekend guests at Bletchley Park, a Buckinghamshire country house, they were accompanied...
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
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
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
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 Move Toward Computing That Reads Your Mind
Like many people in this modern world, I struggle with the tension between the conveniences offered by the latest technology and the loss of privacy that comes...
From ACM Opinion
Is the niverse a Simulation?
In Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita," the protagonist, a writer, burns a manuscript in a moment of despair, only to find out later from the Devil...
From ACM Opinion