Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
What If Facebook Gave S an Opposing-Viewpoints Button?
Imagine if you could flip a switch on Facebook, and turn all the conservative viewpoints that you see liberal, or vice versa. You'd realize your news might look...
From ACM Opinion
Peek Into the Weird and Wonderful Age of AI (yes, There's a Chatbot)
On March 23, Microsoft revealed Tay, a Twitter bot trained to chat like a millennial. It worked … too well.
From ACM Opinion
Doom Is a Gleefully Gory Ballet Set in a Nightmare
My instinct upon leaping into id Software's hyper-gruesome Doom, a gonzo shooter out May 13 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, is to dawdle.
From ACM Opinion
The Coming Horror of Virtual Reality
If Kitchen, a five-minute virtual-reality demo created by the Japanese studio Capcom, were a short film, few viewers would be moved to panic by its misery of horror...
From ACM Opinion
Okcupid Study Reveals the Perils of Big-Data Science
On May 8, a group of Danish researchers publicly released a dataset of nearly 70,000 users of the online dating site OkCupid, including usernames, age, gender,...
From ACM Opinion
After Three Weeks in China, It's Clear Beijing Is Silicon Valley's Only True Competitor
After selling my startup, Shopkick, to SK Planet in 2014, and handing over my CEO role a year later, I packed up my 1- and 3-year-old sons and my wife Angel, and...
From ACM Opinion
The Seven Deadly Social Networks
Almost five years ago, in a soliloquy transcribed by The Wall Street Journal, Reid Hoffman suggested a comprehensive theory of social-network success.
From ACM Opinion
Like It or Not, Facebook Has the Right to Choose Your News
There's an old saying that you shouldn't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
From ACM Opinion
The Creators of Siri Just Showed Off Their Next AI Assistant, Viv, and It's Incredible
Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer created the artificial intelligence behind Siri, Apple's iconic digital assistant, and one of the first modern apps to capably handle...
From ACM Opinion
What Would Happen If G.p.s. Failed?
The radio signal that is the lifeblood of the Global Positioning System originates from a constellation of twenty-four satellites, orbiting more than twelve thousand...
From ACM Opinion
How Wooden Toys Teach Kids to Code
Like most parents, I want my young children to be prepared for the future—one in which knowing how to program a computer will be a basic skill, like clicking "Skip...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Encryption Is in These Politicians' Hands
Encryption is complicated. Legislating for it, even more so.
From ACM Opinion
An Ipad Misplaced at the Airport Takes Its Own Vacation
Last month, Shelby Bonnie's iPad vanished from his carry-on bag somewhere at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a red-eye flight from San Francisco...
From ACM Opinion
You Can't Escape Data Surveillance In America
In America, surveillance has always played an outsized role in the relationship between creditors and debtors.
From ACM Opinion
Is Predictive Policing the Law-Enforcement Tactic of the Future?
As big data transforms industries ranging from retailing to health care, it’s also becoming a more important tool for police departments, which are turning to data...
From ACM Opinion
Will Smell Ever Come to Smartphones?
Two years ago, at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, I witnessed David Edwards receive what he claimed was the world's first transatlantic ...
From ACM Opinion
One Easy Way to Make Wikipedia Better
The Pacific Northwest tree octopus existed years before Wikipedia was founded. I’m using "existed" loosely here, of course, because there's no such thing as a Pacific...
From ACM Opinion
What Cyberwar Against Isis Should Look Like
Pentagon officials have publicly said, in recent weeks, that they're hitting ISIS not only with bullets and bombs but also with cyberoffensive operations.
From ACM Opinion