Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From Communications of the ACM
Max Newman: Forgotten Man of Early British Computing
Reflections on a significant, yet often overlooked, computing pioneer.
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
Bitcoin: Whatever It Is, It's Not Money!
When governments undermine faith in their currencies people turn to alternatives.
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
How Technology Is Slowly Developing Its Sense of Smell
Last week I attended what was, I think it is fair to say, the oddest conference I have been to yet. It was the first world congress of the Digital Olfaction Society...
From ACM Opinion
Why Obama's Brain-Mapping Project Matters
Last week, President Obama officially announced $100 million in funding for arguably the most ambitious neuroscience initiative ever proposed.
From ACM Opinion
Apple and the Mysterious Case of the Missing Moonshot
When John Morrell left his post at Yale University last year and decamped to Apple, some members of the robotics community were perplexed.
From ACM Opinion
Why It's Time For Our Devices to nderstand What We Mean, Not Just What We Say
It wasn’t just cost and Moore’s law. The graphical user interface—now known as the GUI ("gooey")—is what really made computing widespread, personal and ubiquitous...
From ACM Opinion
Homunculism
According to Wikipedia, Ray Kurzweil is an "American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google. Aside from futurology, he is involved in...
From ACM Opinion
Why Private Companies Won't Make p For Cuts in Government Science Funding
The budget cuts that took effect last week could wipe out as much as $54 billion in federal funding of science, research, and innovation over the next five years...
From ACM Opinion
The Best Books About Biotechnology
I've spent the last few weeks creating a syllabus for myself on the world—people, techniques, theory, history—of biotechnology. I've talked with some scholars,...
From ACM Opinion
The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain
The Obama administration is planning a multiyear research effort to produce an "activity map" that would show in unprecedented detail the workings of the human,...
From Communications of the ACM
Funding Successful Research
A proposal for result-based funding for research projects.
From ACM Opinion
Why Mapping the Human Brain Matters
It turns out that President Barack Obama’s head-scratching mention of a project to map the human brain in his most recent State of the Union speech was more than...
From ACM Opinion
Want to See in the Dark? One Day They'll Have an App For That
The combination of man and machine has been so entrenched in our popular culture that for many, the idea that you could attach a sensor to a mouse brain which enables...
From Communications of the ACM
The Value of Microprocessor Designs
Applying a centuries-old technique to modern cost estimation.
From ACM Opinion