Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Opinion
Human-Like Programs Abuse Our Empathy
It is easy to be fooled by the mimicry, but consumers need transparency about how such systems are used.
From ACM Opinion
My Nightmare Trip into the Metaverse
A reporter dons a VR headset, heads into the metaverse, and witnesses the most disturbing sights of her life.
From ACM Opinion
Truly Ethical AI Needs Research to Be Independent from Big Tech
Curb the power of Silicon Valley and protect those who speak up about the harms of AI
From ACM Opinion
'I Predict That the Metaverse Won't Happen'
Silicon Valley has been anticipating virtual reality for more than three decades, but people mostly like actual reality
From ACM Opinion
'The Goal Is to Automate s': Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism
We're living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenberg's invention of printing in circa 1439.
From ACM Opinion
Google at 20: How Two 'Obnoxious' Students Changed the Internet
In the summer of 1995, a second-year grad student called Sergey Brin was giving a tour of Stanford University to prospective students. Larry Page, an engineering...
From ACM News
Has Dopamine Got s Hooked on Tech?
In an unprecedented attack of candour, Sean Parker, the 38-year-old founding president of Facebook, recently admitted that the social network was founded not to...
From ACM Opinion
Tim Berners-Lee on the Future of the Web: 'the System Is Failing'
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's optimism about the future of the web is starting to wane in the face of a "nasty storm" of issues including the rollback of net neutrality...
From ACM News
Google, Democracy and the Truth About Internet Search
Here's what you don’t want to do late on a Sunday night. You do not want to type seven letters into Google. That's all I did.
From ACM Opinion
Genevieve Bell: 'humanity's Greatest Fear Is About Being Irrelevant'
Genevieve Bell is an Australian anthropologist who has been working at tech company Intel for 18 years, where she is currently head of sensing and insights.
From ACM Opinion
Is Blockchain the Most Important It Invention of Our Age?
There are not many occasions when one can give an unqualified thumbs-up to something the government does, but this is one such occasion.
From ACM Opinion
Y'all Have a Texas Accent? Siri (and the World) Might Be Slowly Killing It
It was a simple enough question, at least in this part of the world.
From ACM Opinion
16 Trends That Will Define the Future of Video Games
Hundreds of game developers, publishers and analysts recently descended on Brighton for the annual Develop conference.
From ACM Opinion
Ad Tech Is Killing the Online Experience
There's something so wonderfully easy about reading this column in a physical newspaper.
From ACM Opinion
Stop Complaining About the Facebook Study. It's a Golden Age For Research
Several years ago, my student and I studied anonymous email server data from 40,000 students, faculty and staff at a large university.
From ACM Opinion
Secrets, Lies and Snowden's Email: Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit
My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation...
From ACM Opinion
Heartbleed: Developer Who Introduced the Error Regrets 'oversight'
The developer who introduced the "Heartbleed" vulnerability to the open-source code used by thousands of websites has told the Guardian it was an "oversight"—but...
From ACM Opinion
Will Your Next Phone Have No Screen?
Google is predicting a generation of screenless computing devices that rely on voice recognition, a senior engineer has said, emphasising that the company encrypts...
From ACM Opinion