Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It
I once worked with Steven Spielberg on the development of Minority Report, derived from the short story by Philip K. Dick featuring a future society that uses surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
At Sxsw, the Next Big Thing May Be No Thing at All
Every year, just before South by Southwest Interactive starts, the froth starts churning. Everybody begins wondering what this year’s breakout hit app will be.
From ACM Opinion
One-Hit Wonders
For more than a year now, tens of millions of Americans have found time each day to devote themselves to an essential task: swiping at their phones and tablets...
From ACM Opinion
Why Copyrighted Coffee May Cripple the Internet of Things
With its single-serving coffee pods, Green Mountain Coffee has transformed the business of brew.
From ACM Opinion
What Do Data Brokers Know About Me?
I once ran into a friend and her husband at the playground in our neighborhood in Manhattan.
From ACM Opinion
How Movies and Tv Give Life to the Mundane Text Message
In the last decade, movies and television have sprouted a new plot weakness: if tension hinged in any way on a situation that could have been solved by a simple...
From ACM Opinion
The Weirdest Thing About the Apple Security Bug Is How Simple It Was
So for the past 18 months, there has been a horrific security hole in many of Apple's products that has allowed "man in the middle" attacks on supposedly secure...
From ACM Opinion
Asimov's Predictions from 1964: A Brief Report Card
Predictions about technology's future are almost always doomed.
From ACM Opinion
How I Quit Google
I think it was the search for "pink glitter tiny toms" that finally prompted me to quit Google.
From ACM Opinion
The Problem with Easy Technology
In the history of marketing, there's a classic tale that centers on the humble cake mix.
From ACM Opinion
Comcast's Deal with Netflix Makes Network Neutrality Obsolete
For the past two decades, the Internet has operated as an unregulated, competitive free market.
From ACM Opinion
The Interstellar Contract
Last September, the Times reported that Voyager 1, the hardy spacecraft launched in 1977, had exited the solar system and entered the interstellar void.
From ACM Opinion
Social Media, a Trove of Clues and Confessions
It seems as if every week there's a news story about someone committing a crime and confessing to it on Facebook, bragging about it on Twitter or sharing photos...
From ACM Opinion
An Easy Way to Improve the Olympics: Make Performance Enhancements Legal
In February 2013, Lindsey Vonn—perhaps the most accomplished female skier in American history—tore her anterior cruciate ligament in a crash in the mountains of...
From ACM Opinion
The Political Science of Cybersecurity III—How International Relations Theory Shapes U.S. Cybersecurity Doctrine
U.S. cybersecurity officials have been much more skeptical about international cooperation than their Cold War counterparts were.
From ACM Opinion
This Ingenious Touchscreen i Should Be in Every Car
There may be no greater design crime today than putting a touchscreen in an automobile.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Its Hotels, Sochi's Tech Has Been p For the Olympic Challenge
The scale and grandeur of the Winter Olympics in Sochi is estimated to have cost Russia an astronomical $46 billion.
From ACM Opinion