Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
How Movies and Tv Give Life to the Mundane Text Message
In the last decade, movies and television have sprouted a new plot weakness: if tension hinged in any way on a situation that could have been solved by a simple...
From ACM Opinion
The Weirdest Thing About the Apple Security Bug Is How Simple It Was
So for the past 18 months, there has been a horrific security hole in many of Apple's products that has allowed "man in the middle" attacks on supposedly secure...
From ACM Opinion
Good Riddance to Mt. Gox
It is over. Mt. Gox, bitcoin’s oldest—and once its most popular—exchange, was taken offline Monday night, leaving behind angry customers and acrimonious debate...
From ACM Opinion
Asimov's Predictions from 1964: A Brief Report Card
Predictions about technology's future are almost always doomed.
From ACM Opinion
How I Quit Google
I think it was the search for "pink glitter tiny toms" that finally prompted me to quit Google.
From ACM Opinion
The Problem with Easy Technology
In the history of marketing, there's a classic tale that centers on the humble cake mix.
From ACM Opinion
How to Get a Job at Google
Last June, in an interview with Adam Bryant of The Times, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google—i.e., the guy in charge of hiring...
From ACM Opinion
Comcast's Deal with Netflix Makes Network Neutrality Obsolete
For the past two decades, the Internet has operated as an unregulated, competitive free market.
From ACM Opinion
The Interstellar Contract
Last September, the Times reported that Voyager 1, the hardy spacecraft launched in 1977, had exited the solar system and entered the interstellar void.
From ACM Opinion
Social Media, a Trove of Clues and Confessions
It seems as if every week there's a news story about someone committing a crime and confessing to it on Facebook, bragging about it on Twitter or sharing photos...
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin's Crisis Is Turning Point For Currency
Many bitcoin users are probably too young to remember the Notorious B.I.G.'s 1997 rap hit "Mo Money Mo Problems."
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
The Political Science of Cybersecurity III—How International Relations Theory Shapes U.S. Cybersecurity Doctrine
U.S. cybersecurity officials have been much more skeptical about international cooperation than their Cold War counterparts were.
From ACM Opinion
Why the One Appealing Part of Creationism Is Wrong
Earlier this month, Ken Ham, the founder of the Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Kentucky, held a debate with Bill Nye at the museum.
From ACM Opinion
This Ingenious Touchscreen i Should Be in Every Car
There may be no greater design crime today than putting a touchscreen in an automobile.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Its Hotels, Sochi's Tech Has Been p For the Olympic Challenge
The scale and grandeur of the Winter Olympics in Sochi is estimated to have cost Russia an astronomical $46 billion.
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