COMMUNICATIONS CACM.ACM.ORG OF THEACM 03/2018 VOL.61 NO.03 A Programmable Programming Language How Can We Trust a Robot? Policy Intervention Fosters Cybersecurity Intervention Here Comes Everyone … to Communications Association for Q&A with Yann LeCun Computing Machinery INSPIRING MINDS FOR 200 YEARS Ada’s Legacy illustrates the depth and diversity of writers, things, and makers who have been inspired by Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer. The volume commemorates the bicentennial of Ada’s birth in December 1815, celebrating her many achievements as well as the impact of her work which reverberated widely since the late 19th century. This is a unique contribution to a resurgence in Lovelace scholarship, thanks to the expanding influence of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. ACM Books is a new series of high quality books for the computer science community, published by the Association for Computing Machinery with Morgan & Claypool Publishers. Marquette University’s Third Annual ETHICS OF BIG DATA SYMPOSIUM The emerging world of big data brings with it ethical, social and legal issues. Are you prepared to navigate the challenges and the opportunities? Friday, April 27 8 a.m. – Noon Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin For event information and registration, go to marquette.edu/ethics-of-big-data or contact Dr. Thomas Kaczmarek at [email protected] or 414.288.6734. The deployment of big data brings desirable opportunities to understand, recommend and advise. But the sensitivity of personal data and unintended consequences of algorithmic decisions present us with ethical and moral decisions. The symposium will cover ethical and legal considerations for practitioners, including discussions and dilemmas of agency, fairness, public perception and privacy. Hosted by Northwestern Mutual. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM Departments News Viewpoints, cont’d. 5 Editor’s Letter 27 Legally Speaking Here Comes Everybody … Will the Supreme Court Nix Reviews to Communications of Bad Patents? By Andrew A. Chien Considering the longer-term implications of a soon-to-be-decided 7 Cerf’s Up U.S. Supreme Court case. Unintended Consequences By Pamela Samuelson By Vinton G. Cerf 30 Computing Ethics 9 Vardi’s Insights Ethics Omission A Declaration of the Dependence Increases Gases Emission of Cyberspace A look in the rearview mirror at By Moshe Y. Vardi Volkswagon software engineering. By Simon Rogerson 10 Letters to the Editor 15 Keep the ACM Code of Ethics As It Is 33 The Profession of IT 15 In Pursuit of Virtual Life The Computing Profession 12 BLOG@CACM Scientists are simulating biological Taking stock of progress toward The Costs and Pleasures of organisms and replicating evolution a computing profession a Computer Science Teacher in the lab. How far can they expand since this column started in 2001. Mark Guzdial considers the boundaries of virtual life? By Peter J. Denning the enormous opportunity costs By Samuel Greengard of computer science teachers, 36 Viewpoint while Bertrand Meyer ponders 18 The Construction Industry Impediments with Policy the pleasures of arguing in the 21st Century Interventions to Foster Cybersecurity with graduate students. Three-dimensional printing A call for discussion of governmental and other new technologies investment and intervention in 43 Calendar are revitalizing the business support of cybersecurity. of building buildings. By Fred B. Schneider 117 Careers By Keith Kirkpatrick 39 Viewpoint 21 The State of Fakery Responsible Research with Crowds: Last Byte How digital media could be Pay Crowdworkers authenticated, from computational, at Least Minimum Wage 120 Q&A legal, and ethical points of view. High-level guidelines for the The Network Effect By Esther Shein treatment of crowdworkers. The developer of convolutional By M. Six Silberman, Bill Tomlinson, neural networks looks at Rochelle LaPlante, Joel Ross, their impact, today and Viewpoints Lilly Irani, and Andrew Zaldivar in the long run. By Leah Hoffmann 24 Privacy and Security 42 Viewpoint Making Security Sustainable Computational Social Science ≠ Can there be an Internet Computer Science + Social Data of durable goods? The important intersection By Ross Anderson of computer science and social science. By Hanna Wallach IMAGE: BLUE BRAIN PROJECT / EPFL ©2005 – 2018. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. RESERVED. / EPFL ©2005 – 2018. ALL RIGHTS BRAIN PROJECT BLUE IMAGE: 2 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | MARCH 2018 | VOL. 61 | NO. 3 03/2018 VOL. 61 NO. 03 Practice Contributed Articles Review Articles 86 How Can We Trust a Robot? If intelligent robots take on a larger role in our society, what basis will humans have for trusting them? By Benjamin Kuipers Watch the author discuss his work in this exclusive Communications video. https://cacm.acm.org/videos/ how-can-we-trust-a-robot Research Highlights 46 72 98 Technical Perspective A Graph-Theoretic Framework 46 Bitcoin’s Underlying Incentives 62 A Programmable Programming Traces Task Planning The unseen economic forces Language By Nicole Immorlica that govern the Bitcoin protocol. As the software industry enters By Yonatan Sompolinsky the era of language-oriented 99 Time-Inconsistent Planning: and Aviv Zohar programming, it needs programmable A Computational Problem programming languages. in Behavioral Economics 54 Operational Excellence By Matthias Felleisen, By Jon Kleinberg and Sigal Oren in April Fools’ Pranks Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, Being funny is serious work. Shriram Krishnamurthi, 108 Technical Perspective By Thomas A. Limoncelli Eli Barzilay, Jay McCarthy, On Heartbleed: and Sam Tobin-Hochstadt A Hard Beginnyng Makth 58 Monitoring in a DevOps World a Good Endyng Perfect should never By Kenny Paterson Watch the authors discuss be the enemy of better. their work in this exclusive By Theo Schlossnagle Communications video. 109 Analysis of SSL Certificate https://cacm.acm.org/ videos/a-programmable- Reissues and Revocations Articles’ development led by programming-language in the Wake of Heartbleed queue.acm.org By Liang Zhang, David Choffnes, 72 The Wisdom of Older Technology Tudor Dumitras¸, Dave Levin, (Non)Users Alan Mislove, Aaron Schulman, Older adults consistently and Christo Wilson reject digital technology even when designed to be accessible and trustworthy. By Bran Knowles and Vicki L. Hanson About the Cover: This month’s cover story 78 Evolution Toward Soft(er) Products explores the Racket As software becomes a larger part of language project, a programming language all products, traditional (hardware) designed to support manufacturers are becoming, in language-oriented programming. The story essence, software companies. of this project, now By Tony Gorschek celebrating 20 years, is told by its creators beginning on p. 62. Association for Computing Machinery Cover illustration Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession IMAGES BY SERGEY ILYASOV; TTL MEDIA TTL MEDIA SERGEY ILYASOV; BY IMAGES by Chris Labrooy. MARCH 2018 | VOL. 61 | NO. 3 | COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM Trusted insights for computing’s leading professionals. Communications of the ACM is the leading monthly print and online magazine for the computing and information technology fields. 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