Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time
The data revolution has turned customers into unwitting business consultants, as our purchases and searches are tracked to improve everything from Web sites to...
From Communications of the ACM
Doctoral Program Rankings For U.S. Computing Programs: The National Research Council Strikes Out
A proposal for improving doctoral program ranking strategy.
From Communications of the ACM
The Grounding Practice
The skill of making and recognizing grounded claims is essential for professional practice. Getting objective data to support your conclusions is not enough.
From Communications of the ACM
Data Trends on Minorities and People with Disabilities in Computing
Seeking a comprehensive view of minority student demographics to determine what programs and policies are needed to promote diversity.
From Communications of the ACM
On Turbocharged, Heat-Seeking, Robotic Fishing Poles
There is a well-known proverb, "If you give someone a fish, they'll eat for a day; if you teach them how to fish, they'll eat for a lifetime." The point is obvious...
From Communications of the ACM
The Legacy of Steve Jobs
Reflecting on the career and contributions of the Apple cofounder.
From Communications of the ACM
Life, Death, and the iPad: Cultural Symbols and Steve Jobs
In the days that followed Steve Jobs' death, he was frequently compared to Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. But Jobs was creating experiences, not technologies or...
From Communications of the ACM
The Most Ancient Marketing
Before Apple, Steve Jobs famously went to India with a college friend. While I never had occasion to talk to Jobs about it, I have a theory I wish I had a chance...
From ACM Opinion
Occupy the Net!
What would George Orwell make of Facebook? Nothing really: His account would probably be deactivated by the company. If he were lucky, he would be told to produce...
From ACM Opinion
The Last Person
There is a concept in telecommunications called "the last mile," that part of any phone system that is the most difficult to connect—the part that goes from the...
From ACM Opinion
Misconceptions in Ai: Or Why Watson Can't Talk to Siri
On Tuesday night, I was schooled by Watson on playing Jeopardy in an exhibition match at the Computer History Museum. I discovered that despite our fear of the...
From ACM Opinion
Privacy Loses in Twitter/wikileaks Records Battle
A district court judge in Virginia ruled against online privacy, allowing U.S federal investigators to collect private records of three Twitter users as part of...
From ACM Opinion
Take That, Adobe! Jobs Gets Last Laugh on Flash
In April, 2010, Steve Jobs devoted about 1,700 words to a public post ripping Adobe's Flash to shreds. His most cutting comments concerned the mobile version of...
From ACM Opinion
Blogging the Stanford Machine Learning Class
After three weeks of frustrating math dealing with dull statistics problems, we’re on to frustrating math dealing with "neural networks"—models of how the cells...
From ACM Opinion
How Can Malware Be Stopped?
The world of cybersecurity is starting to resemble a paranoid thriller.
From ACM Opinion
The Court's Gps Test
There were no GPS tracking devices when the framers wrote the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. But that does not mean this sometimes...
From ACM Opinion
The End of the Credit Card?
A new app called Card Case foretells a world without cash and plastic.
From ACM Opinion
Why Siri Is a Google Killer
It has now been a couple of weeks since Siri debuted as part of Apple’s iPhone 4S. The response from most people has been very positive. However, Siri is tremendously...
From ACM Opinion
Why Microsoft Embraced Gaming
When the original Xbox video-game console went on sale in 2001, it wasn't clear why Microsoft, known for staid workplace software, was branching out into fast...
From ACM Opinion