Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Don't Be Fooled by Fake Images and Videos Online
One month before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an "Access Hollywood" recording of Donald Trump was released in which he was heard lewdly talking about women...
From ACM Opinion
Don't Fight the Robots. Tax Them.
When Bill Gates floated the idea of imposing a tax on robots a couple of years ago, Lawrence Summers, a former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, called...
From ACM Opinion
China Will Likely Corner the 5G Market, and the S Has No Plan
You may have heard that China has cornered much of the world's supply of strategic metals and minerals crucial for new technology, including lithium, rare earths...
From Communications of the ACM
From Computational Thinking to Computational Action
Envisioning computing education that both teaches and empowers.
From Communications of the ACM
It's About Power
A call to rethink ethics and equity in computing education.
From Communications of the ACM
Potential 'Dark Sides' of Leisure Technology Use in Youth
Time for balanced reflections on technology.
From Communications of the ACM
Questioning a New Intellectual Property Right for Press Publishers
Considering the implications of the "link tax" provision of the proposed EU Directive for the Digital Single Market for traditional press publishers.
From ACM Opinion
Electronic Contracts and the Illusion of Consent
Q: What do you do when you see a little button on a webpage or app screen that says I agree?
From ACM Opinion
What Trump's Executive Order on AI Is Missing
President Trump signed an executive order on February 11 meant to shore up our competitive position in the international race for AI supremacy, but it is short...
From ACM Opinion
The New Censors Won't Delete Your Words; They'll Drown Them Out
Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth. Each day, the hero of George Orwell's "1984" "corrects" old newspapers to make sure that the information is in still...
From ACM Opinion
Can Subscriptions Save All Media Companies, or Just the New York Times?
It's hard not to feel some whiplash when reading news about the media business these days.
From ACM Opinion
There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology
In his 2008 white paper that first proposed bitcoin, the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto concluded with: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without...
From ACM Opinion
How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent
The average person would have to spend 76 working days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year. Reading Amazon's terms and...
From ACM Opinion
People Don't Trust Blockchain Systems. Is Regulation a Way to Help?
Blockchain technology isn't as widely used as it could be, largely because blockchain users don't trust each other, as research shows.
From Communications of the ACM
Do We Really Need Computational Thinking?
Considering the expression "computational thinking" as an entry point to understand why the fundamental contribution of computing to science is the shift from solving...
From Communications of the ACM
How Computer Science at CMU Is Attracting and Retaining Women
Carnegie Mellon University's successful efforts enrolling, sustaining, and graduating women in computer science challenge the belief in a gender divide in CS education...
From ACM Opinion
The Roger Stone Indictment Shows a Conspiratorial Comedy of Opsec Errors
Former Trump advisor and self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" Roger Stone—the man with a Richard Nixon tattoo on his back and a penchant for playing the evil genius—was...
From ACM Opinion
Five Emerging Cyber-Threats to Worry About in 2019
Last year was full of cybersecurity disasters, from the revelation of security flaws in billions of microchips to massive data breaches and attacks using malicious...
From ACM Opinion
The Quiet Threat Inside 'Internet of Things' Devices
As Americans increasingly buy and install smart devices in their homes, all those cheap interconnected devices create new security problems for individuals and...
From ACM Opinion