Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2021
From ACM Opinion
What Social Media Needs to Learn from Traditional Media
The industry needs to develop professional norms—just as journalism once did
From ACM Opinion
Yann LeCun Talks Research Beginnings and Recent Developments
Deep-learning pioneer discusses early days in image-processing and developments in self-supervised learning for computer vision
From ACM Opinion
How GitHub COO Erica Brescia Runs the Coding Gold Mines
Tech leader discusses the state of GitHub's infrastructure, open source software philosophies, and more
From ACM Opinion
Who's Building the Foundation Models of the Future?
Curation, auditing, and evaluation of so-called 'foundation models' should not be left to the tech industry.
From ACM Opinion
The Imperative for Sustainable AI Systems
The impact of AI's massive carbon footprint is social, not just environmental
From ACM Opinion
Apple and Facebook Are Coming for Your Face Next
The face computer is coming—brace yourself
From ACM Opinion
Building Computer Models That See Everything
Advanced modeling and experimental techniques help computational neuroscientist understand how our minds try to perceive the world
From ACM Opinion
What Is Facebook?
It's a question that's bedeviled the company's own executives for years
From ACM Opinion
Politics Will Be Poorer Without Angela Merkel's Scientific Approach
The departing German chancellor's support for science and rigour in policymaking has proved transformative—except on climate change.
From ACM Opinion
Where Should Information Go to Be Safe?
Enterprise data is safest in the cloud and in the 'fog', according to one expert
From ACM Opinion
Donald Knuth: The Father of Algorithm Analysis
Turing Award winner talks programming, algorithms, the meaning of life, and more
From ACM Opinion
Machine Learning Won't Solve Natural Language Understanding
Data-driven approaches to NLU are psychologically, cognitively, and computationally implausible.
From ACM Opinion
The Third Revolution in Warfare
First there was gunpowder. Then nuclear weapons. Next: artificially intelligent weapons.
From ACM Opinion
Talking Secure Coding
Security expert discusses the importance of secure coding, how to improve adoption, best practices, and more
From ACM Opinion
The World Is Running Out of Microchips—Here's the Solution
Microchips are produced by a few large companies; an open-source design approach could end their dominance
From ACM Opinion
Battery Pioneer Akira Yoshino Talks Tesla, Apple, and the Electric Future
2019 Nobel Prize winner discusses the prospect of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and autonomous electric vehicles that charge themselves
From ACM Opinion
How Open Source Software Shapes AI Policy
And why it is largely absent from policy discussions on artificial intelligence
From ACM Opinion
Did DeepMind Just Take a Big Step Toward More Human-Like AI?
DeepMind researchers have created software agents that navigate a three-dimensional game world called XLand, where the agents learn from experience, by trial and error, how to play a vast number of simple games.
From ACM Opinion
The Global Research Community Must Not Abandon Afghanistan
Vulnerable Afghan researchers need the international research community’s support
From ACM Opinion
Here's Why Tech Companies Are Suddenly Focused on Child Safety
Tech colossi are responding to shifting political winds and trying to preempt new, impending regulations
From ACM Opinion
Can We Handle the Truth about Cybersecurity?
Standardizing disclosure rules while ensuring transparency can strengthen our total cybersecurity landscape
From ACM Opinion
There's a Better Way to Stop Ransomware Attacks
Adopt and enforce regulations for the cryptocurrency industry that are equivalent to traditional banking
From Communications of the ACM
Protecting the Global Internet from Technology Cold Wars
Considering the perceived dangers of the global information flow.
From Communications of the ACM
Security Done Right Can Make Smart Cities Wise
Seeking security improvements for smart cities.
From Communications of the ACM
Women's Lives in Code
Exploring Ellen Ullman's 'Close to the Machine' and AMC's 'Halt and Catch Fire.'
From Communications of the ACM
Back of the Envelope
Back-of-the-envelope calculations are a powerful professional practice.
From Communications of the ACM
Testing Educational Digital Games
Diversifying usability studies utilizing rapid application development.
From Communications of the ACM
Whose Smartphone Is It?
Should two private companies have complete control over the world's cellphones?
From Communications of the ACM
AI Ethics: A Call to Faculty
Integrating ethics into artificial intelligence education and development.
From Communications of the ACM
Playing With, and Against, Computers
2019 ACM Computing Prize recipient David Silver on developing the AlphaGo algorithm, his fascination with Go, and on teaching computers to play.
We Are Camille
09.20.2021Who is Camille Noûs, who has contributed to hundreds of papers on Google Scholar?
Tech Meetups In A Pandemic
09.17.2021By 2019, I generally thought there wasn't much that could surprise me about organizing meetups. Then Covid-19 hit. I was …
How Does One Divide with Napier's Rods?
09.09.2021Napier's multiplication and division rods, deriving from the basic multiplication table, simplify calculations considerably.