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1 week ago | 
cacm.acm.org | Alex Williams |Sam Greengard |Chris Edwards
Quantum computing isn’t just some sci-fi concept anymore. It’s not theoretical. It’s not niche. It’s here—and it’s poised to gut the foundations of modern software development in ways few engineers are ready for. While headlines focus on broken encryption and Shor’s algorithm, the real upheaval runs much deeper. Quantum computing is quietly tearing apart our understanding of algorithmic complexity, leaving decades of optimization work and software architecture exposed.
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1 month ago | 
cacm.acm.org | Alex Tray |Yael Erez |Orit Hazzan |Alex Williams
Over the past 20 years, user-generated content (UGC) has become the core of the most active and interesting sites of the Internet. Be it social media, video sites, web forums, or e-commerce sites, UGC is the force that keeps websites moving. From blog entries and pictures to video clips and critiques, millions of individuals generate content each day.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Alex Williams |Saurabh Bagchi |Shuchi Grover
Many developers and project managers focus on building functional code and shipping products rapidly, while overlooking the importance of maintaining detailed, precise, and comprehensive documentation. However, robust documentation plays a pivotal role in ensuring the long-term success of software projects.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Robin Hill |Sam Greengard |Alex Williams
In my computing ethics class, I introduce the question what ethical issues are faced by us, computer scientists, that are not faced by other professions; an answer would meet our definition of professional ethics. Most professions pledge to uphold the public good, and most professionals expect to take more trouble with their projects than is visible to outsiders, assuming a burden of quality for its own sake.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | David Patterson |Sam Greengard |Alex Williams |Logan Kugler
I started my career at Hughes Aircraft in 1972 while working on my Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After designing airborne computers for four years, I graduated and then taught and did systems research at UC Berkeley for the next 40. Since 2016, I’ve helped Google with hardware that accelerates artificial intelligence (AI). At the end of my technical talks, I often share my life story and what I’ve learned from my half-century in computing.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Thomas Haigh |Sam Greengard |Alex Williams |Logan Kugler
Observing the tsunami of artificial intelligence (AI) hype that has swept over the world in the past few years, science fiction writer Ted Chiang staked out a contrarian position. “Artificial intelligence,” he insisted, was just a “poor choice of words … back in the ’50s” that had caused “a lot of confusion.” Under the rubric of intelligence, verbs such as “learn,” “understand,” and “know” had been misappropriated to imply sentience where none existed.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Alex Williams |Logan Kugler |Alex Tray |Herbert Bruderer
When it comes to fighting fraud in financial systems, traditional tools often fall short in detecting complex, hidden patterns—which is exactly where graph databases stand out. Designed to model intricate relationships, they excel at uncovering suspicious transactions and any network anomalies that are easy to miss with older technologies. Through advanced techniques like link analysis and community detection, graph databases offer a more effective approach to identifying fraudulent activities.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Robin Hill |Ted Selker |WALID SABA |Alex Williams
Robin K. HillThe Techno-Pro Attitudehttps://bit.ly/3XgIziSJune 10, 2024Tech solutionism, as identified by Moss and Metcalf,7 is the notion that all problems have tractable technical fixes. We see variants in the naming and definition of this phenomenon: the technology imperative,8 or “the underlying technocratic philosophy of inevitability”,4 or even old-fashioned technocracy itself.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Luis Ceze |Ted Selker |WALID SABA |Alex Williams
There is no denying that deep learning, especially with generative models AI, has deeply transformed how we use computers. It has also quickly become where a very large fraction of the world’s computing resources is now focused. Most deep-learning systems implementations involve expressing the machine learning (ML) model in some higher-level framework (for example, Caffe in the early days, then TensorFlow, and now PyTorch).
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
cacm.acm.org | Ted Selker |Berry Billingsley |WALID SABA |Alex Williams
Our last post introduced a novel interface with a facial expression drawn on the sides of a cube made of a sponge, to guide the tone of a Generative AI response. Showing a face to the camera on a phone or tablet prompted Generative AI’s response to come from a curious, thoughtful, skeptical, or confident point of view. Besides getting people to see how tone affects responses, the unusual interface might help people remember the experience well.
