Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM News
The Future of Brain Implants
What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant...
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
Why Robots Will Not Be Smarter Than Humans By 2029
In the last few days we've seen a spate of headlines like 2029: the year when robots will have the power to outsmart their makers, all occasioned by an Observer...
From ACM Opinion
Language Barriers
The British scientist and polymath Stephen Wolfram has always had big ambitions.
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
Some Predict Computers Will Produce a Jobless Future. Here's Why They're Wrong.
Will "smart machines" steal our jobs?
From ACM Opinion
Last Call For Bad Calls
Technology will soon make officials at high-level sports events as obsolete as elevator operators, their skill set as useful as knowing how to make a wood tennis...
From ACM News
Baxter and the Second Machine Age
The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century is not just the story of steam power, but steam started it all.
From ACM Opinion
A Creator of Skynet Ponders Google
After an eight-year detour in which he served as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to his true calling as a cyborg assassin.
From ACM Opinion
An AI Pal That Is Better Than 'her'
In the movie Her, which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture this year, a middle-aged writer named Theodore Twombly installs and rapidly falls in love with...
From ACM Opinion
What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?
On a future road trip, your robot car decides to take a new route, driving you past a Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop.
From ACM Opinion
How Isaac Asimov Got 2014 Both So Right and So Wrong
In 1964, legendary writer of science fiction and science fact Isaac Asimov visited the World's Fair, where a General Electric pavilion chronicling advances in electric...
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Bought Nest: A Theory
Google is acquiring Nest, makers of a smart thermostat, for a reported $3.2 billion.
From ACM Opinion
Why Her Will Dominate i Design Even More Than Minority Report
A few weeks into the making of Her, Spike Jonze's new flick about romance in the age of artificial intelligence, the director had something of a breakthrough.
From ACM Opinion
10 Bold Predictions For 2014
At the beginning of each year, it's possible to make predictions about the future of the tech sector simply by extrapolating from data in the latest Mary Meeker...
From ACM Opinion
Civilian Photography, Now Rising to New Level
Five years ago, the DJI Phantom 2 Vision would have seemed like a science fiction film prop or a piece of surveillance hardware flown only by the sexiest of superspies...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Robot Army
A couple of weeks ago, shortly after the Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos unveiled, on "60 Minutes," that his company plans to deliver packages to customers with a swarm...
From ACM Opinion
Falling in Love with AI Virtual Assistants: A Creepy Love Affair Nearer Than You Think
"I've never loved anyone the way I've loved you," swoons Joaquin Phoenix, in the movie Her.
From ACM Opinion