Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Science Fellows Challenge the Company's Fund-Raising For Senator Inhofe
Ten years ago this week, Senator James M. Inhofe, the Republican from Oklahoma, used a two-hour floor speech to launch his campaign on the credibility of climate...
From ACM Opinion
A Day in the Life of My Iphone
Each morning at 7 a.m., I am awakened by the sound of a spaceship next to my bed.
From ACM Opinion
I'm Still Waiting For My Phone to Become My Wallet
During the sweltering heat wave earlier this month, it seemed too hot to wear much, carry much or do much of anything at all.
From ACM Opinion
Who Scores Games By Hand Anymore?
The first thing Bruce Levy did upon recent entry into Yankee Stadium while accompanied by his in-laws and teenage son was to purchase a program in the area of the...
From ACM Opinion
The Pros and Cons of a Surveillance Society
Here are three topics much in the news these days: Prism, the surveillance program of the national security agency; the death of Trayvon Martin; and Google Glass...
From ACM Opinion
Snowden, Through the Eyes of a Spy Novelist
For a spy novelist like me, the Edward J. Snowden story has everything. A man driven by ego and idealism—can anyone ever distinguish the two?—leaves his job and...
From ACM Opinion
Blowing a Whistle
I'm glad I live in a country with people who are vigilant in defending civil liberties.
From ACM Opinion
The Banality of 'don’t Be Evil'
"The New Digital Age" is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared...
From ACM Opinion
At Google Conference, Cameras Even in the Bathroom
The future came crashing down on me this week at the Google I/O developer conference while I stood at a bathroom urinal.
From ACM Opinion
Measuring the Benefits of Tech Tools
When I was a young reporter we could not afford cellphones.
From ACM Opinion
nraveling Boston Suspects' Online Lives, Link By Link
It is America's first fully interactive national tragedy of the social media age.
From ACM Opinion
The Flattening of Design
It might sound audacious to think that Microsoft, the arbiter of uncool, was at the forefront of design a few years ago. But it was.
From ACM Opinion
Googling You
The settlement last week between a group of state attorneys general and Google over the company’s improper data collection from home wireless networks shows the...
From ACM Opinion
The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain
The Obama administration is planning a multiyear research effort to produce an "activity map" that would show in unprecedented detail the workings of the human,...
From ACM Opinion
The Origins of 'big Data': An Etymological Detective Story
Words and phrases are fundamental building blocks of language and culture, much as genes and cells are to the biology of life.
From ACM Opinion
A Fuzzy and Shifting Line Between Hacker and Criminal
In January 2011, I was assigned to cover a hearing in Newark, where Daniel Spitler, then 26, stood accused of breaching AT&T's servers and stealing 114,000 email...
From ACM Opinion
Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps"—precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users—is increasingly a matter of national...
From ACM Opinion