Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
How the Smartphone Killed Typing—but Started an AI Revolution
Steve Jobs often swam against the tide of prevailing opinion.
From ACM Opinion
Algorithms Are Great and All, But They Can Also Ruin Lives
On April 5, 2011, 41-year-old John Gass received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Surveillance State Lives On
Once upon a time, Glenn Greenwald was a lonely voice in the blogging wilderness, and Edward Snowden was an isolated functionary at the heart of the American national...
From ACM Opinion
The Simple Question Nobody's Asking About Net Neutrality
President Obama rattled the internet this week when he unloaded his opinion on net neutrality, the notion that all internet traffic should be treated equally.
From ACM Opinion
Reasons to Land on a Comet: What the Rosetta Mission Can Learn
After a journey that took more than a decade, the world is scheduled to witness a first when the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission attempts to land a small...
From ACM Opinion
Why We're All Beta Testers Now
I taught a class a few years ago at Columbia Business School called "What Makes a Hit a Hit—and a Flop a Flop."
From ACM Opinion
These Are 3 Breakthrough Science Ideas You'll Be Talking About in 2015
For anyone who has ever said that all the STEM professions need is something to make them "cool" in order to attract more young people, look no further than ...
From ACM Opinion
A Sad Fact of Life: It's Actually Smart to Be Mean Online
I'm generally upbeat on Twitter. Many of my posts are enthusiastic blurts about science or research in which I use way too many exclamation points!!
From ACM Opinion
Will Moocs Be Flukes?
On July 23rd, 1969, Geoffrey Crowther addressed the inaugural meeting of the Open University, a British institution that had just been created to provide an alternative...
From ACM Opinion
North Korea: Surfing the Net in the World's Most Isolated Nation
What's the point of a computer in a hermit country sealed off from the internet?
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence as a Threat
Ebola sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Bird flu and SARS also send shivers down my spine.
From ACM Opinion
Invasion of the Data Snatchers
New technologies are making it easier for private companies and the government to learn about everything we do—in our homes, in our cars, in stores, and within...
From ACM Opinion
The Surreal Task of Landing on a Comet
On November 12th 2014 the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission will eject the small robotic lander Philae on a trajectory that should take it down to the surface...
From ACM Opinion
The Web Is a Terrorist's Command-and-Control Network of Choice
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) is the first terrorist group whose members have grown up on the internet.
From ACM Opinion
Human Spaceflight: Find Asteroids to Get to Mars
Interplanetary flight is the next giant leap for humans in space. Yet consensus on even the smallest steps forward has proven elusive.
From ACM Opinion
Demystifying the Mooc
When massive open online courses first grabbed the spotlight in 2011, many saw in them promise of a revolutionary force that would disrupt traditional higher education...
From ACM Opinion
Why All Employees Must Learn to Code
The most important technological skill for all employees is being able to code.
From ACM Opinion
Why Rite Aid and Cvs Stopped Taking Apple Pay
The introduction of Apple Pay last Monday was widely described as the dawn of a new era for smartphone payments.
From ACM Opinion