Jonathan Aldrich

Me to pharmacist: give me all three shots, COVID, Flu and Shingles--bam, bam bam! We'll see how this goes....

One day left! Applications to our online Master of Software Eng program are due tomorrow, Oct 14 at noon PT. Join our part-time program to learn the foundational SE principles and AI-based dev techniques that will take your career to the next level! mse.s3d.cmu.edu/applicants/m...

If you're working in Software Engineering and want to change your career trajectory, join our online Master of Software Engineering program, part of the newly named CMU Griffin School of Computer Science! Info session tomorrow 9am, register at admissions.scs.cmu.edu/register/mse...

We should call it souperintelligence because we are all drowning in AI soup

It never made sense to regulate C02 via the EPA's pollution rules, it's just too different from other forms of pollution. Carbon taxes are the right mechanism. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/c...

Happy New Year to my Jewish friends!

Makes sense to allow stay-at-home parents to collect child care subsidies as a substitute for hiring someone else for child care. Then the subsidy is accessible to all parents! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/u...

Don't be a meat proxy! Instead, use your wisdom, reasoning, and creativity to direct AI tools and to filter and enhance their output into something meaningful and useful.

A very well-written, thoughtful article. My university environment never reached the "woke" excesses described here, especially in computer science. But I definitely saw some aspects of this, and it's worth taking seriously. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

FWIW, I think the question of "Did Woke 1 go to far?" it depends on where you ask! On college campuses? Sometimes. In making cops responsible for bad behavior? Obviously not! In holding sex pests and criminals to account? Clearly incomplete, look at the damn White House.

I have a request for anyone who helps organize or leads an ACM SIG, conference, etc. I'm chairing a task force on publication integrity in CS (clear-computing.org). Part of that work is surveying the community on tools used. If you can help spread the word to SIG/conf leaders, please do.

"Light rail" is as old as I am. I like it!

Want to ensure the AI you embed in your applications doesn't go rogue like OpenAI's did? Take Machine Learning in Production, part of our SE with AI online certificate this fall, & learn how to build, deploy, assure, & maintain AI/LLM-powered software. Apply by July 29! www.cmu.edu/online/softw...

The solution to AI safety is not to train closed models so that they never "press the nuclear button." Because we can't stop the bad guys from finding workarounds or using open models. The solution is formal security guarantees that models don't have nuclear buttons to press.

@acm.org President Elisa Bertino clarifies that no decision has been made on opening the Digital Library to LLM training. The ACM wants your feedback on this! cacm.acm.org/news/a-messa...

If you would like to share your thoughts, please use this link (buff.ly/fnANR1x). ACM leadership will take your feedback into account while we develop and implement our AI content strategy over the coming months.

We are opening a consultation on the inclusion of ACM publications within AI licensing agreements for access and training purposes. We have published this piece as to why we believe it is the right time now to enter into these discussions. buff.ly/VTatuda

Yesterday...Northwestern Ontario looked like a scene straight out of Dante’s Peak.

Come take my AI Tools for Software Development course!

My take on daylight savings time: when the sun rises, it should be 7am. Every day. That's what your body wants. Clocks have computers in them now, we can do this!

Had a great chat today with ACM India president @pkprofgiri.bsky.social, learned about all the great things they are doing--awards, speakers, hackathons, industry and student events, etc. Lots of chapter activity & growing membership, would love to see more of this across ACM!

America has plenty of issues, and the current administration is making them worse. But we still have a ton of strengths--smart, diverse people & a can-do culture. There's no place in the world where I'd rather be a citizen. Happy 4th of July! And happy 250th birthday to the USA!

That One Non-Profit Governance Trick: Experts make decisions in a smoke-filled room, keeping information private so they can "roll out" decisions in the right way. Then make the wrong decision because there was no community input and get massive community push-back as a result.

SMH about the wild stories of anti-A/C regulation in Europe. A/C is much more important as a way to mitigate the effects of global warming than it is as a contributor. Plus it literally saves lives.

Wow, Congress passes the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with lots of great pro-housing stuff and literally nothing that's really bad! Trump will reportedly sign it. Amazing that we get this given how dysfunctional Washington has been lately. bipartisanpolicy.org/issue-brief/...

The Second Treaty of Versailles. I'm sure it will be as successful as the first one!

My daughter and I watched a famous thriller tonight that's as old as I am! First time I'd seen it, and just about the scariest movie I've even watched.

Cloudflare's "security verification" is annoying and users should punish sites that use it by not visiting them. Does anyone know why sites use this annoyance-wall and what are the alternatives to it?

PsAIchotherapy (n): another name for prompt engineering

Ian is doing awesome work on a novel sanitizer, which checks that C/C++ code that is linked with Rust does not break Rust's memory invariants!

As always, art illuminates the human condition. Banksy, April 29, 2026. Photo by @vukvalcic.bsky.social

The very conservative Rod Drehrer, who attended the Catholic baptism of JD Vance: “Not saying Trump is the Antichrist. But he’s radiating the spirit of Antichrist, no question.”

Just weird to see places with a mile long cocktail menu and no mocktails offered. Totally leaving money on the table!