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 Communications of the ACM
Toward a Solid Acceptance of the Decentralized Web of Personal Data: Societal and Technological Convergence
Giving individuals more control of their personal data.
From Communications of the ACM
Ulterior Motives
2023-2024 ACM Athena Lecturer Margo Seltzer recalls the motivations behind the development of the Berkeley DB database software library, and other achievements...
From Communications of the ACM
For a More Transparent Governance of Open Source
Seeking the best governance models for FOSS projects.
From Communications of the ACM
Can Generative AI Bots Be Trusted?
It will be a long road to learning how to use generative AI wisely.
From ACM Opinion
AI Not Yet Intelligent Enough to Be a Trusted Research Aid
An attempt to use ChatGPT for scholarly research proves uncovers errors and frustration.
From ACM Opinion
Computers Have Memories Too
Simons Foundation Junior Fellow Sebastian Wolff discusses his quest to simplify the switch between the two deletion processes.
From ACM Opinion
Web Scraping
The increasing use of computational approaches for data collection and data analysis in social sciences research.
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's Missteps Should Be a Lesson for Web3
The new crop of technologists building Web3 can still learn a lot from Open Graph's problems
From Communications of the ACM
Using Computer Programs and Search Problems for Teaching Theory of Computation
Recognizing the significance of a cornerstone of computer science.
From Communications of the ACM
How Might We Increase System Trustworthiness?
Summarizing some of the changes that seem increasingly necessary to address known system and network deficiencies and anticipate currently unknown vulnerabilities...
From Communications of the ACM
The Cloud as an Innovation Platform for Software Development
How cloud computing became a platform.
From ACM Opinion
The FBI Wanted a Backdoor to the iPhone. Tim Cook Said No
In 2016, Tim Cook fought the law—and won.
From ACM Opinion
Trump's Plan to Keep America First in AI
The US leads the world in artificial intelligence technology. Decades of federal research funding, industrial and academic research, and streams of foreign talent...
From ACM Opinion
The New Censors Won't Delete Your Words; They'll Drown Them Out
Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth. Each day, the hero of George Orwell's "1984" "corrects" old newspapers to make sure that the information is in still...
From ACM Opinion
How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent
The average person would have to spend 76 working days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year. Reading Amazon's terms and...
From ACM Opinion
Google Assistant Is Getting Sci-Fi Ambitious
From 550 feet in the air, Google's Scott Huffman peers down at the Las Vegas skyline. It's a sunny afternoon in early January and, at the moment, Google owns this...
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
Happy 18th Birthday, Wikipedia. Let's Celebrate the Internet's Good Grown-p.
On Tuesday, Wikipedia celebrates its 18th birthday. If the massive crowdsourced encyclopedia project were human, then in most countries, it would just now be considered...
From ACM Opinion
To Cover China, There's No Substitute for WeChat
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Li Yuan, a technology columnist in Hong Kong, discussed the tech she's...
From ACM News