January 19, 2017
Dear members of the SIGMOD/PODS Community: On January 16 (Martin-Luther-King Day in the USA), the SIGMOD Executive Committee decided to move the ACM SIGMOD/PODS 2017 conference out of North Carolina to a new, still undecided location. The decision was made unanimously by the Committee following extensive discussions with the SIGMOD Advisory Board. The SIGMOD/PODS community […]
Read moreOctober 6, 2016
Self-driving cars, ride-sharing service (e.g., Uber and Lyft), and Pokemon Go are just three examples of recent disruptive applications that gained huge market share and publicity. It is expected that each self-driving car will generate 2 PB of data per year, with 10 Million of such cars by 2020. Uber has 2+ Billion rides so […]
Read moreApril 10, 2016
In the 21st century, our everyday lives are shaped by what machines tell us to do. Big data and their application to economy, policy, and our social life act as behavioral equalizers. And this they do under the assumption of optimization in both subtle and open ways. In fact, they are pushing individuals into uniform […]
Read moreFebruary 18, 2016
Some months ago, I found an exciting piece of news on the Web: a top manager proclaimed [1]: “If the most important thing you offer is data, you are in trouble. (….) Algorithms is where the real value lies. Algorithms define action.” How interesting! It seems to suggest that everybody, including computer scientists and in […]
Read moreNovember 20, 2015
(This blog post is an extended version of an October 12, 2015 Le Monde op-ed article (in French)) Our society is increasingly relying on algorithms in all aspects of its operation. We trust algorithms not only to help carry out routine tasks, such as accounting and automatic manufacturing, but also to make decisions on our […]
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