Generally covering the broad topics of computing and related technology.
In this talk former technology journalist and longtime media executive Caroline McCarthy offers a basic overview of what makes tech policy different from all the other political issues out there, and a framework for learning about it and getting involved with elected officials.
How Americans Can Become Tech Policy Activists Read More
As technology—especially computer, information, and Internet technology—permeates all aspects of our society, people who understand that technology need to be part of public-policy discussions. We need technologists who work in the public interest. We need public-interest technologists.
Public-Interest Technology Resources Read More
FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, from fears about work and privacy to rivalry between the U.S. and China. The documentary traces a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society.
In the Age of AI Read More
The New York Times, September 26, 2019
By Davey Alba and Adam Satariano
“Despite increased efforts by internet platforms like Facebook to combat internet disinformation, the use of the techniques by governments around the world is growing, according to a report released Thursday by researchers at Oxford University. Governments are spreading disinformation to discredit political opponents, bury opposing views and interfere in foreign affairs.”
At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds Read More
Communications of the ACM, August 2019
By Emilio Ferrara
“In this article, I will briefly review the history of digital spam: starting from its quintessential incarnation, spam emails, to modern-days forms of spam affecting the Web and social media, the survey will close by depicting future risks associated with spam and abuse of new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (e.g., Digital Humans).”
The History of Digital Spam Read More
In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order Read More
Automation is putting process into code. A bullet list in a process document is code if it is treated that way.
Documentation Is Automation Read More
Communications of the ACM, March 2019
By Andrew A. Chien
“It is time for the computing community to face up to computing’s growing environmental impact—and take responsibility for it! And further, to undertake research, design, and operations to reduce this growing impact.”
Owning Computing’s Environmental Impact Read More
Communications of the ACM, March 2019
By Judea Pearl
“Unlike the rules of geometry, mechanics, optics, or probabilities, the rules of cause and effect have been denied the benefits of mathematical analysis.” “…the art of automated reasoning.”
The Seven Tools of Causal Inference, with Reflections on Machine Learning Read More
Communications of the ACM, March 2019
By Ofir Turel
“For many years we have emphasized the positive aspects of computing technologies because we believed in their contribution to humanity. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of evidence in support of a technology duality view. That is to say, we have started realizing and quantifying the notion that many of the technologies we develop can also be harmful, especially when used excessively.”
Potential ‘Dark Sides’ of Leisure Technology Use in Youth Read More
In this article, we present a new way of describing the Internet, better attuned to the realities of networking today, and to meeting the challenges of the future. Its central idea is that the architecture of the Internet is a flexible composition of many networks—not just the networks acknowledged in the classic Internet architecture, but many other networks both above and below the public Internet in a hierarchy of abstraction.
The Compositional Architecture of the Internet Read More
Directed by: Karim Amer & Jehane Noujaim
Writing Credits: Karim Amer, Erin Barnett & Pedro Kos
Worldwide release by Netflix July 24, 2019
“Explore how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolize the dark side of social media in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
The Great Hack Read More
Communications of the ACM, March 2019
By Advaith Siddharthan, Kapila Ponnamperuma, Chris Mellish, et al.
“The Blogging Birds system shows that raw satellite tag data can be transformed into fluent, engaging, and informative texts directed at members of the public and in support of nature conservation.”
Blogging Birds: Telling Informative Stories About the Lives of Birds from Telemetric Data Read More
Idle Words
By Maciej Cegłowski
“For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call it “ambient privacy” – the understanding that there is value in having our everyday interactions with one another remain outside the reach of monitoring, and that the small details of our daily lives should pass by unremembered. What we do at home, work, church, school, or in our leisure time does not belong in a permanent record. Not every conversation needs to be a deposition.”
The New Wilderness Read More
MIT Technology Review, July/Aug 2019
“It’s part of our ethos that technology can and should be a force for good. Our annual list of 35 innovators under 35 is a way of putting faces on that idea. ”
35 Innovators Under 35 – 2019 Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Vinton G. Cerf
“We collectively owe much to the foresight and nuanced decisions taken by the leadership of [National Science Foundation’s] Computer, Information Systems and Engineering Directorates (CISE) and its Division of Computer and Network Systems.” [Without that, there would be no Internet as we know it today.]
In Debt to the NSF Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Benjamin Treynor Sloss, Shylaja Nukala, Vivek Rau
“One of the most important choices in offering a service is which service metrics to measure, and how to evaluate them. The difference between great, good, and poor metric and metric threshold choices is frequently the difference between a service that will surprise and delight its users with how well it works, one that will be acceptable for most users, and one that will actively drive away users—regardless of what the service actually offers. … What follows are the types of metrics the Google SRE team has adopted for Google services. These metrics are not particularly easy to implement, and they may require changes to a service to instrument properly. It has been our consistent experience at Google, however, that every service team that implements these metrics is happy afterward that it made the effort to do so.”
Metrics That Matter Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Pat Helland
“The fascinating thing about identifiers is that while they identify the same “thing” over time, that referenced thing may slide around in its meaning. Product descriptions, reviews, and inventory balance all change, while the product ID does not. Reservations, orders, and bookings all have identifiers that do not change, while the stuff they identify may subtly change over time. Identity and identifiers provide the immutable linkage. Both sides of this linkage may change, but they provide a semantic consistency needed by the business operation. No matter what you call it, identity is the glue that makes things stick and lubricates cooperative work. … The judicious use of ambiguity and interchangeability lubricates distributed, long-running, scalable, and heterogeneous systems.”
Identity by Any Other Name Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Michael E. Caspersen, Judith Gal-Ezer, Andrew McGettrick, Enrico Nardelli
“The emphasis of the report is on informatics education, with informatics seen as the science underpinning the development of the digital world—a distinctive discipline with its own scientific methods, its own ways of thinking, and its own technological development.”
Informatics as a Fundamental Discipline for the 21st Century Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Steffen Staab, Susan Halford, Wendy Hall
“For the past decade, Web Science has been building the interdisciplinary expertise to face the challenges and realize the value of this rapidly growing and diversifying Web. This task transcends the work of any single academic discipline. While our universities continue—overwhelmingly—to be organized in siloes established in the 20th century, or much earlier, the Web demands expertise from computer science, sociology, business, mathematics, law, economics, politics, psychology engineering, geography, and more. Web Science exists to integrate knowledge and expertise from across fields, integrating this into systematic, robust, and reliable research that provides an action base for the future of the Web.”
Web Science in Europe: Beyond Boundaries Read More