Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
And Science's Breakthrough of the Year Is …
It was conceived after a yogurt company in 2007 identified an unexpected defense mechanism that its bacteria use to fight off viruses.
From ACM Opinion
Driverless Cars Are Colliding with the Creepy Trolley Problem
Philosophers have been gnawing on the infamous Trolley Problem for decades, and it’s always been a purely intellectual exercise with no "right" answer.
From ACM Opinion
The Dark Side of the Coming Chatbot Revolution
Artificial intelligence is coming to a messaging app near you.
From ACM Opinion
Genome-Editing Revolution: My Whirlwind Year with Crispr
Some 20 months ago, I started having trouble sleeping.
From ACM Opinion
How the Internet of Things Limits Consumer Choice
In theory, the Internet of Things—the connected network of tiny computers inside home appliances, household objects, even clothing—promises to make your life easier...
From ACM Opinion
The Science to Look Out For in 2016
A Swiss company is set to become the first firm to capture carbon dioxide from the air and sell it on a commercial scale, a stepping stone to larger facilities...
From ACM Opinion
A Pause to Weigh Risks of Gene Editing
The technology for altering defects in the human genome has progressed so rapidly in the last three years that it has outstripped the ability of scientists and...
From ACM Opinion
Elon Musk's Billion-Dollar AI Plan Is About Far More Than Saving the World
Elon Musk and Sam Altman worry that artificial intelligence will take over the world. So, the two entrepreneurs are creating a billion-dollar not-for-profit company...
From ACM Opinion
What the Government Should've Learned About Backdoors from the Clipper Chip
In the face of a Federal Bureau of Investigation proposal requesting backdoors into encrypted communications, a noted encryption expert urged Congress not to adopt...
From ACM Opinion
Let's Outlaw Math
In the name of protecting us against terrorists, law enforcement agencies want high tech companies to relinquish their Golden Keys, backdoors to their otherwise...
From ACM Opinion
How the Science in 'star Wars’ Is Actually Real
For a story that takes place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" a great deal of the technology in the "Star Wars" series actually has parallels today on...
From ACM Opinion
The End of Work?
Welcome to the era of AI-human hybrid intelligence, where people and artificial intelligence systems work together seamlessly.
From ACM Opinion
Driverless Cars Are Like Elevators
One of the challenges in describing the potential of self-driving cars is that they promise to do so much.
From ACM Opinion
Google's New Autoreply Sounds Great!!!!
On April 1, 2009, Google unveiled Gmail Autopilot, a plug-in that promised to read and generate contextually relevant replies to the messages piling up in users'...
From ACM Opinion
Eric Schmidt on How to Build a Better Web
Turning Point: The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria declares a war on Twitter.
From ACM Opinion
Big Data's Mathematical Mysteries
At a dinner I attended some years ago, the distinguished differential geometer Eugenio Calabi volunteered to me his tongue-in-cheek distinction between pure and...
From ACM Opinion
Pop Culture Is Finally Getting Hacking Right
The idea of a drill-wielding hacker who runs a deep-web empire selling drugs to teens seems like a fantasy embodying the worst of digital technology.
From ACM Opinion
In Defense of Algorithms
OK, I'm biased, given the countless hours I have spent over the past three decades creating algorithms, implementing them on computers, and then writing about them...
From ACM Opinion