Assn for Computing Machinery

Join us in the upcoming #ACMDSPLecture, "From Single-agent to Federated Reinforcement Learning" with speaker Yuejie Chi of Carnegie Mellon University. The in-person event will take place on March 27, 2026. More info here: https://www.ece.iastate.edu/events/distinguished-seminar-with-yuejie-chi/

#distinguishedspeaker #computing #tech

HBD to Yoshua Bengio, 2018 #ACMTuringAward Laureate! Bengio received the award for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing. In this HLF interview, Bengio discusses the nature of intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHhFI8JexLg.

Aside from security, memory unsafety can be the cause of reliability issues and is notoriously expensive to debug. In the latest issue of "Queue: In Practice," four software engineers argue that the best place to start today is by improving our standard libraries.

Learn more: https://open.substack.com/pub/theofficialacm/p/practical-security-in-production?r=6w5qsy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#ACMNewsletter #Substack #softwareengineering

🌐"Data collected for advertising should not be repurposed for law enforcement surveillance or tracking."

🔗 To learn more more, download the new statement from ACM USTPC: https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/public-policy/usacm/privacy-and-security/privacy-and-security/ustpc-statement-adtech-and-dhs.pdf

#techpolicy #security #privacy

More than a billion people worldwide suffer from a mental-health condition, according to the World Health Organization. With the ascent of AI therapy, more people are turning to chatbots for solace. What are the opportunities and potential risks of AI therapists?

Here're four new books that grapple with a global mental-health crisis and the dawn of algorithmic therapy. https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/30/1129392/book-reviews-ai-therapy-mental-health/ #TechNews

This week, we’re reading the Prologue and Part I of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by computer scientist and author Melanie Mitchell. There are far too many insights to pack into one post, but here is a sneak peek into these opening chapters.

What are your favorite passages so far? Let us and the author know in the comments!

Register for our online discussion with Melanie Mitchell on March 24: https://acm-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/SPOuKp2uT4WeGG3gwhdWJA#/registration

#ACMBookClub

In this week’s People of ACM profile, we speak with Ke Yi, Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Program Chair, ACM PODS 2026, and recently named ACM Fellow for contributions to the theory and practice of query processing. Read here: https://www.acm.org/articles/people-of-acm/2026/ke-yi

On February 27, 1976, the National Security Agency retired the IBM 7950 Harvest, one of the most powerful and specialized computers of its time. For more computing milestones: https://www.acm.org/education/otd-in-computing-history #OTD in #computinghistory

Today, let’s remember Charles Thacker, who was born on this day in 1943. Thacker received the #ACMTuringAward in 2009 for the pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer -- the Alto at Xerox PARC -- and seminal inventions and contributions to local area networks (including the Ethernet), multiprocessor workstations, snooping cache coherence protocols, and tablet personal computers.

Read more about him, here: https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/thacker_1336106.cfm #OTD

In this week’s People of ACM, we’re getting a behind-the-scenes look at the world’s largest video sharing platform. Pei Cao, Vice President, Engineering, YouTube, outlines the innovations which have helped YouTube grow to a point where it now serves 2.8 billion users. Cao, who was named an ACM Fellow for contributions to web caching, search engine efficiency, and information quality, recounts her work reducing network bandwidth consumption. Read the full interview here: https://www.acm.org/articles/people-of-acm/2026/pei-cao

In our latest #AdvancesInComputing newsletter:

- the agentic economy 💰
- AI coders 👨‍💻
- designing for Alzheimer's patients 🧓
and more.

Read now 📜
https://open.substack.com/pub/theofficialacm/p/understanding-the-agentic-economy?r=6w5qsy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Thirty years ago, IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue played against world champion Garry Kasparov at the 1996 ACM Chess Challenge.

In her latest Substack post, Kris J. distilled four core principles from IBM's Agentic AI Security Guide.

Read it here: https://buff.ly/EFPhKnW

Meet Pablo Cesar, who leads the Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) group at CWI and is Professor of Human-Centered Multimedia Systems at TU Delft. His research focuses on measuring and evaluating the way users interact and communicate with each other using a wide range of decentralized digital systems.

To request a lecture with Cesar, visit: https://speakers.acm.org/speakers/cesar_22610

Understanding how large language models work is more essential than ever. By studying large language models as if they were living things instead of computer programs, scientists are discovering some of their secrets for the first time.

Learn more: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/12/1129782/ai-large-language-models-biology-alien-autopsy/ #TechNews

Less than a month left to submit to the ACM/CSTA 2026 Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing! The award is designed to recognize talented high school seniors at varying levels of CS proficiency and to empower aspiring learners to pursue computing challenges beyond the classroom, leading to potential and practical real-world applications.

Learn more and share it with the future computing experts in your life: https://www.cvent.com/c/abstracts/aad23be6-1243-489a-83f0-7fc42843badc

“As the old joke goes, in the future there will be a factory that needs only two employees: one human and one dog. The human's job will be to feed the dog. The dog's job will be to make sure nobody touches the equipment.”

In the latest "Queue: In Practice": Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christian Pearce on SREs.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theofficialacm/p/is-sre-anti-transactional?r=6w5qsy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Subscribe today to receive the newsletter every other week. #SubStack #ACMNewsletter #Queue

Researchers say more and more terms for these “neo-­emotions” are showing up online, describing new dimensions and aspects of feeling.

With the help of ChatGPT, a Reddit user generated the feeling of "velvetmist," along with advice on how to evoke the feeling.

Learn more here: https://buff.ly/loCx6SF #TechNews

Join us for the upcoming ACM DSP Lecture with Ron Baecker, "DIGITAL DREAMS HAVE BECOME NIGHTMARES: WHAT WE MUST DO - A CALL TO ACTION," on Feb 23 at 3PM, local time.

Learn more here: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/event/2026/02/acm-distinguished-speaker-ron-baecker

Today, let’s remember Niklaus Wirth, who was born #OTD in 1934. Wirth received the 1984 #ACMTuringAward for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages, EULER, ALGOL-W, MODULA and PASCAL. Read more about him, here: https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/wirth_1025774.cfm #OTD

Congratulations to #ACMFellow Brad A. Myers of Carnegie Mellon for receiving the 2025 CBI Human-Computer Interaction (#HCI) History Prize!

Myers was honored for his book, Pick, Click, Flick!: The Story of Interaction Techniques (#ACMBooks, 2024)—a landmark work exploring the evolution of how we interact with computers.

Described as “a reflective and highly impressive monument of a book,” it’s a must-read for anyone passionate about HCI.

👏 Well-deserved recognition!

https://bit.ly/4mECFCE

"[N]ot every AI startup has the capital to invest in the huge numbers of GPUs now required to run a cutting-edge model. For some, it’s a better deal to outsource it. This has led to the rise of a new business: GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS)." Learn more here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/gpu-as-a-service #TechNews