Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?
Forecasting future technology has never been easy. In the 1950s, scientists and technologists envisaged that by now the world would be free from disease, traversed...
From ACM Opinion
Governments Won't Need to Issue Ids: Data Brokers Will Identify You For Them
Our government collects a lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records, records of government services received—it's all in databases...
From ACM Opinion
20 Years On, the Open Web Faces Challenges
For people of a certain age in the technology industry, one of the ways of establishing a connection with someone is by asking some version of the following question...
From ACM Opinion
The Medium of the Moment
After the Boston Marathon bombings, the process by which breaking news and information are generated and disseminated looked more ragged and exposed than ever: ...
From ACM Opinion
How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt
The first official announcement that law enforcement agencies had concluded their manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't come at a...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Next Big Thing
The iPad has always labored under the shadow of its little brother the iPhone.
From ACM Opinion
We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.
From ACM Opinion
Mars vs. Europa: Are We Looking in the Wrong Place For Alien Life?
A British astrobiology conference has revived a years-old debate over the best place to look for life elsewhere in the solar system: Mars, or the moons of Jupiter...
From ACM Opinion
Is High-Tech Security at Public Events Counterproductive?
Which is more intrusive: security screening and metal detectors every few blocks, or a drone flying high above it taking video of every little thing you do?
From ACM Opinion
The Greatest Trick the Government Ever Pulled Was Convincing the Public the 'hacker Threat' Exists
The U.S. government is already fighting wars on several fronts, including the perpetual War on Terror.
From ACM Opinion
How New Military Technologies Can Help Prevent the Next Boston or Newtown
This week, it's bombs. In December, it was guns.
From ACM Opinion
How Pixar sed Moore's Law to Predict the Future
Whether you call it a data-driven prediction or think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, Moore's Law has been going strong.
From ACM Opinion
Name-Brand Genes: Is Our Genetic Makeup What's Next in Personal Branding?
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case that could decide whether it's possible to patent specific human genes that have been "snipped" out of our DNA...
From ACM Opinion
Proceed with Caution Toward the Self-Driving Car
Driving on Interstate 495 toward Boston in a Ford Fusion one chilly afternoon in March, I did something that would've made even my laid-back long-ago driving instructor...
From ACM Opinion
Time and Navigation: How We Found Our Way in the World
Type an address into your phone, and up will pop a step-by-step route from where you are to where you want to be. This is, in its way, magic—magic that has, at...
From ACM Opinion
Should We Fall Out of Love with Robot Surgery?
Last fall, shoppers outside a Macy's store in Boston were given a chance to test drive a robot. They were invited, compliments of Brigham and Women’s Hospital,...
From ACM Opinion
More Cracks ndermine the Citadel of Tv Profits
For the longest time in the media business, the concept of the bundle has been foundational.
From ACM Opinion