Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety
Interacting online today means being besieged by system-generated recommendations, but do we want what the machines tell us we want?
From ACM Opinion
The Challenges of Regulating Cryptocurrency
The S.E.C. has yet to set clear rules on cryptocurrencies, leaving the industry guessing. Maybe that's how the agency wants it.
From ACM Opinion
The Search for Anti-Conservative Bias on Google
Last Wednesday, a day after Google's C.E.O., Sundar Pichai, sat before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the company's search engine,Donald...
From ACM Opinion
Why Did the European Commission Fine Google Five Billion Dollars?
Acording to some estimates, about eighty-five per cent of the world's smartphones run on Google's Android operating system.
From ACM Opinion
Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?
The reason you've been receiving a steady stream of privacy-policy updates from online services, some of which you may have forgotten you ever subscribed to, is...
From ACM Opinion
The G.D.P.R., Europe's New Privacy Law, and the Future of the Global Data Economy
They're curious messengers, these ants in your in-box.
From ACM Opinion
We May Own Our Data, But Facebook Has a Duty to Protect It
Two years ago, Jack M. Balkin, a constitutional-law professor at Yale, published a fifty-page article in the U.C. Davis Law Review examining what he called problems...
From ACM Opinion
Cryptocurrency: The Hail Mary Pass for People Who Missed the Tech Boom
Between mid-December and early February, bitcoin lost more than half its value, dropping from a high of nearly twenty thousand dollars to just below seven thousand...
From ACM Opinion
New York City's Bold, Flawed Attempt to Make Algorithms Accountable
The end of a politician's time in office often inspires a turn toward the existential, but few causes are as quixotic as the one chosen by James Vacca, who this...
From ACM Opinion
The Fake-News Fallacy
On the evening of October 30, 1938, a seventy-six-year-old millworker in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, named Bill Dock heard something terrifying on the radio.
From ACM Opinion
Teddy Roosevelt Wouldn't nderstand the E.u.'s Antitrust Fine Against Google
Back in 1980, Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago economist, starred in a public-television series called "Free to Choose," in which he presented his free...
From ACM Opinion
There's Nowhere to Hide on the Internet
Sometime before dawn on March 29th, not too many hours after Congress approved legislation that allows Internet-service providers to sell your browsing historyInternet...
From ACM Opinion
Why Facebook Is Really Blocking the Ad Blockers
Ads can seem like the bane of the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
For the Golden State Warriors, Brain-Zapping Could Provide an Edge
Back in March, James Michael McAdoo, the power forward for the Golden State Warriors, tweeted out a photo of himself in the training room, sporting a pair of slick...
From ACM Opinion
Lessons from Apple vs. the F.b.i.
It's welcome news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has dropped its legal effort to force Apple to help it create a method of accessing data on a lockedSan...
From ACM Opinion
How the Internet Has Changed Bullying
This summer, American Psychologist, the official journal of the American Psychological Association, released a special issue on the topic of bullying and victimization...
From ACM Opinion
Why Companies Won't Learn From the T-Mobile/experian Hack
Last Thursday, John Legere, the C.E.O. of T-Mobile, joined the ranks of the dozens of chief executives who, in the past few years, have had to inform their customers...
From ACM Opinion
A Beginner's Guide to Invisibility
It is possible, according to many sources, to become invisible, but you must be patient, methodical, and willing to eat almost anything.
From ACM Opinion
Why Larry Page Is Stepping Away
In the ten years that I’ve been watching him, Larry Page has always wanted to play by his own rules.
From ACM Opinion