Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
How Relying on Algorithms and Bots Can Be Really, Really Dangerous
So you can’t wait for a self-driving car to take away the drudgery of driving? Me neither! But consider this scenario, recently posed by neuroscientist Gary Marcus...
From ACM Opinion
Why It's Time For Our Devices to nderstand What We Mean, Not Just What We Say
It wasn’t just cost and Moore’s law. The graphical user interface—now known as the GUI ("gooey")—is what really made computing widespread, personal and ubiquitous...
From ACM Careers
10 Companies Chasing Innovations That Really Matter
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin faced some flak recently when he announced he was starting a new company in the already crowded field of digital payments.
From ACM Opinion
What to Do After You've Been Hacked
Evernote became the latest member of the "we’ve been hacked" club. And the thing is, what was once a pretty exclusive club now lets just about everyone in these...
From ACM Opinion
The Fbi Needs Hackers, Not Backdoors
Just imagine if all the applications and services you saw or heard about at CES earlier this month had to be designed to be "wiretap ready" before they could be...
From ACM Opinion
Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs
It's hard to believe you'd have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.
From ACM Opinion
Intellectual Ventures: Why the Patent System Needs Aggregators Like S
The U.S. patent system borrowed from mainland Europe a concept that had evolved over hundreds of years: the "moral right" for inventors to protect their ideas....
From ACM Opinion
No Longer Vaporware: The Internet of Things Is Finally Talking
The rise of the machines has begun: Steve Sande’s household fan is now self-aware.
From ACM Opinion
Wrath of the Math: Obama Wins Nerdiest Election Ever
Congratulations, Barack Obama: You have prevailed in the nerdiest election in the history of the American Republic.
From ACM Opinion
Why Everyone (not Just Geeks) Should Care About Big Data
Hugo Campos has a cardiac defibrillator implanted in his body. It sends data about his heart to his doctors and back to the manufacturer, but it takes days to get...
From ACM Opinion
If Design's No Longer the Killer Differentiator, What Is?
We already know that design matters. Product design. Industrial design. Experience design. Supply chain design. Witness the renewed fervor for the iPhone 5 today...
From ACM Opinion
Air Force Video Compares Facebook, Iphone to Atom Bombs
The world of tomorrow is going to be a dark and sinister place, according to a group of Air Force futurists. One reason why it'll be so scary: Facebook.
From ACM Opinion
Todd Akin and the Anti-Science House Science Committee
Aside from the sheer biological ludicrousness of Todd Akin's ideas on female physiology, one unsettling subplot to the debacle is his presence on the House of Committee...
From ACM Opinion
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed.
From ACM Opinion
How to Fly the .s.'s Trillion-Dollar Stealth Fighter Jet
The first rule of flying the world's most advanced fighter jet: Do not push the red button until you absolutely mean to.
From ACM Opinion
Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet
A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from Iran. It was sent by an analyst from the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team, and it was informing me about...
From ACM Opinion
Nah, Iran Probably Didn't Hack Cia's Stealth Drone
Four months after capturing a crashed U.S. stealth drone near the Iran-Afghanistan border, Tehran claims it has hacked into the ‘bot’s classified mission-control...
From ACM Opinion
Data Mining and Kids: Thank Goodness She Didn't Pay Cash!
Remember the movie The Minority Report? It is based upon a Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. Well, the movie is supposed to portray an implausible dystopian...
From ACM Opinion