Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM is the top print and digital magazine for the computing and information technology sectors. It is widely read by top professionals in the field around the globe and is known as a reliable and authoritative source of information for today’s computing experts.

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Is AI Security Work Best Done In Academia or Industry? Part 2

1 week ago | cacm.acm.org | Saurabh Bagchi

We left off in Part 1 with arguments for why industry has become the place for major leaps in AI, though with several notable exceptions, both historical and ongoing. In Part 2, we will consider the counterpoints that make it attractive for doing AI security work in academic lanes and bylanes.
Communications of the ACM

2 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Vinton Cerf

In June, the annual ACM Awards gala will be upon us, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge and congratulate the awardees. They represent our most creative and productive colleagues, who have earned recognition and admiration for their work. The Turing Award recipients for 2024, which will be presented in June, are Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton, for their seminal introduction of reinforcement learning.
Communications of the ACM

2 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Esther Shein

Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly is finding its way into art and has become a hot-button topic. Artists from all mediums emphatically support the use of AI, saying it augments and enhances their work, expanding what is possible. They are also unequivocal that they are still the creators of their work and the AI is not—but believe artists and technology must learn to coexist harmoniously. The reasons to use AI in different art forms are compelling.
A Growing Concern in Cybersecurity

2 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Alex Tray

Interconnected business systems mean that one security flaw can have far-reaching consequences. Zero-day exploits pose a unique risk—they emerge without warning and leave no time for a defensive patch. These exploits give cybercriminals a rare advantage: access to systems without detection and without a known fix in place. By the time most organizations react, the damage often is already done.
Is AI Security Work Best Done In Academia or Industry? Part 1

3 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Saurabh Bagchi

Making the case for academia, and for industry, as the best place to do AI research. A question that has been asked in our circles for a few years is, what is the best place to do AI research, academia or industry? An insightful Science article from 2023 by Neil Thompson and colleagues at MIT shed light on part of this question.
Communications of the ACM

3 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Neil Savage

Ever since ChatGPT was released to the public in November 2022, people have been using it to generate text, from emails to blog posts to bad poetry, much of which they post online. Since that release, the companies that build the large language models (LLMs) on which such chatbots are based—such as OpenAI’s GPT 3.5, the technology underlying ChatGPT—have also continued to put out newer versions of their models, training them with new text data, some of which they scraped off the Web.
Communications of the ACM

3 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Sam Greengard

Datacenters power the modern world. Nearly every aspect of modern life—from accessing social media and commerce sites to processing financial transactions and operating transportation networks—hinges on the computing power they provide. Yet, datacenters have drawbacks: they consume enormous amounts of energy, occupy vast expanses of land, and require large volumes of water for cooling. From an energy and sustainability perspective, they pose major challenges.
Learning Computer Science Behind Bars

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Julie Stewart |Robin Hill |Sam Greengard

“I am not smart enough for this.”That thought kept popping into Molly Kelly’s head during her first coding class. She glanced at her three classmates, who looked nervous, too. They weren’t sitting in a high school or college classroom. They were adults learning Web development in a six-month course offered behind the walls of the maximum-security Indiana Women’s Prison, where they were all serving time.
Communications of the ACM

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Robin Hill |Sam Greengard

Those of us inclined to lob accusations of hubris at new forms of artificial intelligence, on the grounds that we observed (and possibly fomented) the same kind of affliction in the classical forms, should at least clarify the analogy. What are the similarities that advise caution, and what are the differences that might alleviate it? We address primarily the large language model, and draw attention to its use of text. Consider a traditional linguistics class of some years ago.
Catching the Vibe of Vibe Coding

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Sam Greengard |Allyn Jackson

In early 2023, Matt Welsh wrote an opinion piece in Communications of the ACM that described programmers as dinosaurs waiting for the meteor to hit. Welsh, now director of AI Systems at Palantir Technologies, expressed in his article, “The End of Programming,” that he believes the traditional idea of writing a program is headed for extinction, and most software will be written by artificial intelligence (AI) systems that are trained, rather than programmed.