Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
China's Cyber-Generals Are Reinventing the Art of War
The conventional wisdom is that the future of war will involve private robot armies, predator drones carrying out precision strikes, and maybe even the militarization...
From ACM Opinion
The End Is A.i.: The Singularity Is Sci-Fi's Faith-Based Initiative
In 1993, Vernor Vinge wrote a paper about the end of the world.
From ACM Opinion
Man Behind the First Computer Password: It's Become a Nightmare
In the early 1960s, Fernando Corbató helped deploy the first known computer password.
From ACM Opinion
Should .s. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?
There's a debate going on about whether the U.S. government—specifically, the NSA and United States Cyber Command—should stockpile Internet vulnerabilities or disclose...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet's History Isn’t As "open" As You Think
This spring, the Federal Communications Commission is deciding how to regulate the "Open Internet"—a term it uses to refer to the movement for net neutrality.
From ACM Opinion
Every Little Byte Counts
In "On What We Can Not Do," a short and pungent essay published a few years ago, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben outlined two ways in which power operates...
From ACM News
How Google Built Its 3-D Interactive Rubik's Cube Doodle
Today Google launched one of its coolest doodles yet: a 3-D interactive Rubik's Cube.
From ACM Opinion
Who Watches the Watchers? Big Data Goes nchecked
The National Security Agency might be tracking your phone calls. But private industry is prying far more deeply into your life.
From ACM News
Do We Need Asimov's Laws?
In 1942, the science fiction author Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround in which he introduced three laws that governed the behaviour of robots...
From ACM Opinion
Our Smartphones Are Making Live Tv Better Than Ever
The history of the Internet is one of lonely people trying to find one another.
From ACM Opinion
Glenn Greenwald's Pulse-Pounding Tale of Breaking the Snowden Leaks
In June 2013, Edward Snowden was sitting in his room at the Mira hotel in Hong Kong, watching the world react to the first of his explosive leaks about the NSA's...
From ACM Opinion
The Peril of Knowledge Everywhere
Thanks to advances in technology, we may soon revisit a question raised four centuries ago: Are there things we should try not to know?
From ACM Opinion
The Not-So-Distant Future When We Can All pgrade Our Brains
In a decade, cognitive enhancement may have gone mainstream.
From ACM Opinion
Here's How to Learn How Much Your Data Is Worth to Facebook and Google
The anti-virus software company AVG has created PrivacyFix, an app to help you get a handle on just how much you're worth to big-time data players Facebook and...
From ACM Opinion
The Move Toward Computing That Reads Your Mind
Like many people in this modern world, I struggle with the tension between the conveniences offered by the latest technology and the loss of privacy that comes...
From ACM Opinion
Want to Learn Quicker? se Your Body
Ever got to grips with a problem? Picked up a new skill? Grasped a difficult concept? The language of learning is full of references to parts of the body outside...
From ACM Opinion
Computer Mice: Still a Thing
For decades, the mouse was a key component of how one interacted with a computer.
From ACM Opinion
4 Ways the Political Elite Try (and Fail) to Avoid Leaving a Trail of Incriminating Messages
The most powerful people in the country are just not as good as teenagers when it comes to being discreet. Mostly that’s by design—there are freedom of information...
From ACM Opinion