Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Even Realistic Videogames Like Call of Duty Won't Help S Win Wars
Millennials can now storm the beaches of Normandy and fight Nazis with a new level of realism.
From ACM Opinion
Trust in Digital Technology Will Be the Internet's Next Frontier, For 2018 and Beyond
After decades of unbridled enthusiasm—bordering on addiction—about all things digital, the public may be losing trust in technology.
From ACM Opinion
The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018
Imagine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your...
From ACM Opinion
8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018
It was a very strange year for technology companies. They have become a "bipartisan whipping boy," a new sexist institution, responsible for the muddying of the...
From ACM Opinion
What Telegram Owes Iranians
After the 2009 Green Movement—a failed attempt to overturn a stolen presidential election through street protests—the Iranian political establishment took away...
From ACM Opinion
10 Ways Tech Will Shape Your Life in 2018, For Better and Worse
Is the outlook for technology in 2018 exciting—or slightly terrifying? Flip a coin. You'd be right either way.
From ACM Opinion
3 Brain Technologies to Watch in 2018
Technologies to detect brain activity—fine, we'll come right out and call it mind reading—as well as to change it are moving along so quickly that "a bit of a gold...
From ACM Opinion
License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch
Wow, that 2017, though. Quite a year. Let's grab a Juicero and take a moment to reflect on the utter dumpster fires that we've witnessed over the past 12 months...
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
Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch
As self-driving cars inch closer to everyday reality, journalists, futurists, economists, and ethicists have weighed in with numerous predictions about autonomous...
From ACM Opinion
Science Fiction When the Future Is Now
AlphaGo, fake news, cyberwar: 2017 has felt science-fictional in the here and now. Space settlement and sea-steading seem just around the bend; so, at times, do...
From ACM Opinion
The Year the Home Button Died
The most convincing lie Steve Jobs ever told was "you already know how to use it."
From ACM Opinion
Don't Get Your Kid an Internet-Connected Toy
For last-minute shoppers, tech toys hold a special appeal.
From ACM Opinion
Augmented Reality's Real Power Will Come From Substance, Not Flash
Last week the pilot light for my water heater went out. I tried to relight it by following the instructions pasted on the side of the heater, but they were as inscrutable...
From ACM Opinion
The Bitcoin Boom: In Code We Trust
You don't need brilliant financial analysis skills to notice that Bitcoin is in a bubble.
From ACM Opinion
Goodbye Internet: How Regional Divides pended the World Wide Web
So, there you have it: 2017 was the year that finally broke the internet.
From ACM Opinion
Five Priorities For Weather and Climate Research
Meteorology is entering a new era. Demand is growing worldwide for forecasts of storms, floods and droughts.
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence Is Killing the ncanny Valley and Our Grasp on Reality
There's a revolution afoot, and you will know it by the stripes.
From ACM Opinion
Beyond Bitcoin: How Technology Could Help Fix Our Broken Financial System
On a spring day more than 5,000 years ago in the Mesopotamian city of Ur, a foreign merchant sold his wares in exchange for a large bundle of silver.
From ACM Opinion