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 Careers
The Other Ted Prize
Sergey Brin waltzed in for a try and threw up a score of 250,953, first time out of the gate and with Google Glass still perched on his face.
From ACM Opinion
The Ar-15 Is More Than a Gun. It's a Gadget
I was shaking as I shouldered the rifle and peered through the scope at the small steel target 100 yards downrange.
From ACM News
Cellphone Chips Will Remake the Server World. Period.
Facebook recently ran an experiment. Inside a test lab, somewhere behind the scenes at the world's most popular network, engineers sidled up to a computer server...
From ACM Opinion
Why We Should Build Software Like We Build Houses
Architects draw detailed plans before a brick is laid or a nail is hammered. Programmers and software engineers don't. Can this be why houses seldom collapse and...
From ACM Opinion
Why Subtraction Is the Hardest Math in Product Design
Simple doesn't just sell, it sticks.
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
On Stephen Hawking, Vader, and Being More Machine Than Human
Click-click-click: This is what you hear when having a conversation with Stephen Hawking. No voice, no other sounds, no facial expressions.
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
The Next Big Os War Is in Your Dashboard
Competition in automotive technology has long been about who's got the most horsepower, the best towing capacity or the fastest acceleration. These days, though...
From ACM Opinion
Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can't Protect S Anymore
You have a secret that can ruin your life.
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
Probability Versus Prediction in Volcanic Hazards (and Elections)
Unless you've been living on the far side of the moon for the past two years, you'll know that the U.S. presidential election is next week. Now, I'm by no means...
From ACM Opinion
Cybercrime: Mobile Changes Everything—and No One's Safe
The FBI recently put out a mobile malware alert, providing us with a sobering reminder of this "evil software" for phones and tablets.
From ACM Opinion