Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
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
Is Anyone Home? A Way to Find Out If AI Has Become Self-Aware
Every moment of your waking life and whenever you dream, you have the distinct inner feeling of being "you."
From ACM Opinion
Spreading Fake News Becomes Standard Practice For Governments Across the World
Campaigns to manipulate public opinion through false or misleading social media postings have become standard political practice across much of the world, with...
From ACM Opinion
The Russians Will Be Back. Will We Be Ready?
In recent days, our nation's response to the continued threat of foreign meddling in American elections has taken something of a surprising turn.
From ACM Opinion
Please Prove You're Not a Robot
When science fiction writers first imagined robot invasions, the idea was that bots would become smart and powerful enough to take over the world by force, whether...
From ACM Opinion
Information Technology: A Digital Genius at Play
The US mathematician and electrical engineer Claude Shannon, whose life spanned the tumultuous, technologically explosive twentieth century, is often called the...
From ACM Opinion
Why Robots Won't Steal All Our Jobs
Don't worry. The robots won't destroy all our jobs. History suggests just the opposite—that new technologies inspire new jobs.
From ACM Opinion
Donald Trump's 'impenetrable Cybersecurity' Is Pure Fantasy
Nothing connected to the internet is safe from hackers. And I mean nothing.
From ACM Opinion
Could a Robot Be President?
President Donald Trump reportedly spends his nights alone in the White House, watching TV news and yelling at the screen.
From ACM Opinion
Who Do We Think We Are?
"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee; Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow; Die not, poor Death...
From ACM Opinion
AI Will Make Forging Anything Entirely Too Easy
"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," said an exasperated James Comey in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. Comey's desire reflects a...
From ACM Opinion
A Reality Check For Ibm's AI Ambitions
Paul Tang was with his wife in the hospital just after her knee replacement surgery, a procedure performed on about 700,000 people in the U.S. every year.
From ACM Opinion
Image Doctoring Must Be Halted
Seven years ago, a cover of The Economist showed Barack Obama, head down on a Louisiana beach in front of an oil rig—the picture of lonely despair.
From ACM Opinion
It's Too Late to Stop China from Becoming an AI Superpower
Last Thursday, Texas senior senator John Cornyn stood before an audience of wonks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, and warned that America's...
From ACM Opinion