Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Magical Technologies Just Over the Horizon
We the people have always been helplessly drawn to the concept of magic: the notion that you can will something to happen by wiggling your nose, speaking special...
From ACM Opinion
Why Video Games Are Obsessed With the Apocalypse
Video games are, in a way, the perfect medium through which to depict the post-apocalypse. If we assume that after the collapse of civilisation everyone will revert...
From ACM Opinion
Tracking the Spread of Culture Through Folktales
There's a reason why the premise of American Gods is so alluring: the US is home to a wild and glorious mishmash of gods, folktales, and cultural heritage.
From ACM Opinion
We Can Stop Hacking and Trolls, but It Would Ruin the Internet
Cyberterrorism fears are through the roof.
From ACM Opinion
Preserving the Right to Cognitive Liberty
The idea of the human mind as the domain of absolute protection from external intrusion has persisted for centuries.
From ACM Opinion
Bot and Bothered
Facebook has been working on artificial intelligence that claims to be great at negotiating, makes up its own language and learns to lie.
From ACM Opinion
Human Vs. Machine Contests (real or Fictional) But Involving Ordinary Humans
I'm looking for a famous (or at least interesting) human vs. machine contest to use as an analogy in an article.
From ACM Opinion
Fear of a Robot Planet
It was in the 12th century that the great brass head built by Albertus Magnus moved its mouth for the first time, breathing steam as it spoke to Magnus' young religious...
From ACM Opinion
Editing Human Embryos with Crispr Is Moving Ahead; Now's the Time to Work Out the Ethics
The announcement by researchers in Portland, Oregon that they've successfully modified the genetic material of a human embryo took some people by surprise.
From ACM Opinion
Better Business Through Sci-Fi
About five years ago, Ari Popper enrolled in a course on science-fiction writing at the University of California, Los Angeles, hoping to distract himself from the...
From ACM Opinion
The Guardian View on the Future of Crime: It Will Be Online
When software gets smarter, the first effect is to empower the already powerful.
From ACM Opinion
If You Could 'design' Your Own Child, Would You?
Scientists in Portland, Ore., just succeeded in creating the first genetically modified human embryo in the United States, according to Technology Review.
From ACM Opinion
Greetings, E.t. (please Don't Murder s.)
On Nov. 16, 1974, a few hundred astronomers, government officials and other dignitaries gathered in the tropical forests of Puerto Rico's northwest interior, a...
From ACM Opinion
Zuckerberg and Musk Are Both Wrong About AI
Back in 2015, a group of business leaders and scientists published an "open letter" about how controlling artificial superintelligence might be the most urgent...
From ACM Opinion
Metrology Is Key to Reproducing Results
Imagine you are a policymaker who needs to know how much carbon is stored in the South American forest.
From ACM Opinion
Quantum Teleportation Is Even Weirder Than You Think
A BBC headline last week, 'First object teleported to Earth's orbit', has to be one of the most fantastical you'll see this year. For once, it seems the future...
From ACM Opinion
How China Tames Dissent on the Internet
Chinese government leaders, subtle masters of propaganda, seem to have discovered a Sun Tzu formula for taming dissent on the Internet: The best strategy may not...
From ACM Opinion
When Companies Get Hacked, Should They Be Allowed to Hack Back?
There is an old debate (at least, counting in internet years) that tends to crop up after major cybersecurity breaches such as the widespread WannaCry ransomware...
From ACM Opinion