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The Everyday Life of an Algorithm by Daniel Neyland Pdf
This open access book begins with an algorithm–a set of IF...THEN rules used in the development of a new, ethical, video surveillance architecture for transport hubs. Readers are invited to follow the algorithm over three years, charting its everyday life. Questions of ethics, transparency, accountability and market value must be grasped by the algorithm in a series of ever more demanding forms of experimentation. Here the algorithm must prove its ability to get a grip on everyday life if it is to become an ordinary feature of the settings where it is being put to work. Through investigating the everyday life of the algorithm, the book opens a conversation with existing social science research that tends to focus on the power and opacity of algorithms. In this book we have unique access to the algorithm’s design, development and testing, but can also bear witness to its fragility and dependency on others.
The Power of Algorithms by Giorgio Ausiello,Rossella Petreschi Pdf
To examine, analyze, and manipulate a problem to the point of designing an algorithm for solving it is an exercise of fundamental value in many fields. With so many everyday activities governed by algorithmic principles, the power, precision, reliability and speed of execution demanded by users have transformed the design and construction of algorithms from a creative, artisanal activity into a full-fledged science in its own right. This book is aimed at all those who exploit the results of this new science, as designers and as consumers. The first chapter is an overview of the related history, demonstrating the long development of ideas such as recursion and more recent formalizations such as computability. The second chapter shows how the design of algorithms requires appropriate techniques and sophisticated organization of data. In the subsequent chapters the contributing authors present examples from diverse areas – such as routing and networking problems, Web search, information security, auctions and games, complexity and randomness, and the life sciences – that show how algorithmic thinking offers practical solutions and also deepens domain knowledge. The contributing authors are top-class researchers with considerable academic and industrial experience; they are also excellent educators and communicators and they draw on this experience with enthusiasm and humor. This book is an excellent introduction to an intriguing domain and it will be enjoyed by undergraduate and postgraduate students in computer science, engineering, and mathematics, and more broadly by all those engaged with algorithmic thinking.
The Everyday Life of an Algorithm by Daniel Neyland Pdf
This open access book begins with an algorithm-a set of IF...THEN rules used in the development of a new, ethical, video surveillance architecture for transport hubs. Readers are invited to follow the algorithm over three years, charting its everyday life. Questions of ethics, transparency, accountability and market value must be grasped by the algorithm in a series of ever more demanding forms of experimentation. Here the algorithm must prove its ability to get a grip on everyday life if it is to become an ordinary feature of the settings where it is being put to work. Through investigating the everyday life of the algorithm, the book opens a conversation with existing social science research that tends to focus on the power and opacity of algorithms. In this book we have unique access to the algorithm's design, development and testing, but can also bear witness to its fragility and dependency on others. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.
Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian,Tom Griffiths Pdf
A fascinating exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives, helping to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favourites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades. And the solutions they've found have much to teach us. In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, acclaimed author Brian Christian (who holds degrees in computer science, philosophy, and poetry, and works at the intersection of all three) and Tom Griffiths (a UC Berkeley professor of cognitive science and psychology) show how the simple, precise algorithms used by computers can also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one's inbox to understanding the workings of human memory, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.
Algorithmic Culture by Stefka Hristova,Jennifer Daryl Slack,Soonkwan Hong Pdf
Algorithmic Culture: How Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are Transforming Everyday Life explores the complex ways in which algorithms and big data, or algorithmic culture, are simultaneously reshaping everyday culture while perpetuating inequality and intersectional discrimination. Contributors situate issues of humanity, identity, and culture in relation to free will, surveillance, capitalism, neoliberalism, consumerism, solipsism, and creativity, offering a critique of the myriad constraints enacted by algorithms. This book argues that consumers are undergoing an ontological overhaul due to the enhanced manipulability and increasingly mandatory nature of algorithms in the market, while also positing that algorithms may help navigate through chaos that is intrinsically present in the market democracy. Ultimately, Algorithmic Culture calls attention to the present-day cultural landscape as a whole as it has been reconfigured and re-presented by algorithms.
The Algorithmic Society by Marc Schuilenburg,Rik Peeters Pdf
We live in an algorithmic society. Algorithms have become the main mediator through which power is enacted in our society. This book brings together three academic fields – Public Administration, Criminal Justice and Urban Governance – into a single conceptual framework, and offers a broad cultural-political analysis, addressing critical and ethical issues of algorithms. Governments are increasingly turning towards algorithms to predict criminality, deliver public services, allocate resources, and calculate recidivism rates. Mind-boggling amounts of data regarding our daily actions are analysed to make decisions that manage, control, and nudge our behaviour in everyday life. The contributions in this book offer a broad analysis of the mechanisms and social implications of algorithmic governance. Reporting from the cutting edge of scientific research, the result is illuminating and useful for understanding the relations between algorithms and power.Topics covered include: Algorithmic governmentality Transparency and accountability Fairness in criminal justice and predictive policing Principles of good digital administration Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the smart city This book is essential reading for students and scholars of Sociology, Criminology, Public Administration, Political Sciences, and Cultural Theory interested in the integration of algorithms into the governance of society.
Life by Algorithms by Catherine Besteman,Hugh Gusterson Pdf
Essays on the downsides, dysfunctions, and dangers of automated decision-making: “An excellent survey of the algorithmically managed life.” —Choice The phone systems that businesses use to screen calls. The link between student standardized test scores and public schools’ access to resources. The algorithms that regulate patient diagnoses and reimbursements to doctors. The impenetrable corporate bureaucracy that can drive customers in need of help up the wall—or drive them to suicide. The storage, sorting, and analysis of massive amounts of information have enabled the automation of decision-making at an unprecedented level. Meanwhile, computers have offered a model of cognition that increasingly shapes our approach to the world. The proliferation of “roboprocesses” is the result, as editors Catherine Besteman and Hugh Gusterson observe in this rich and wide-ranging volume, which features contributions from a distinguished cast of scholars in anthropology, communications, international studies, and political science. Though automatic processes are designed to be engines of rational systems, the stories in Life by Algorithms reveal how they can in fact produce absurd, inflexible, or even dangerous outcomes. Joining the call for “algorithmic transparency,” the contributors bring exceptional sensitivity to everyday sociality into their critique to better understand how the perils of modern technology affect finance, medicine, education, housing, the workplace, food production, public space, and emotions—not as separate problems but as linked manifestations of a deeper defect in the fundamental ordering of our society. “‘The Machine Stops,’ E. M. Forster’s 1909 science fiction story, tells the tale of a human society collapsing when the technology upon which it has become dependent fails. Think of [this] volume as ‘The Machine Starts,’ a collection of unsettling ethnographic accounts of the rise of algorithmic governance . . . A necessary and sobering call to arms.” —Stefan Helmreich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Contributors include: Catherine Besteman * Alex Blanchette * Robert W. Gehl * Hugh Gusterson * Catherine Lutz * Ann Lutz Fernandez * Joseph Masco * Sally Engle Merry * Keesha M. Middlemass * Noelle Stout * Susan J. Terrio
Algorithms and the End of Politics by Timcke, Scott Pdf
As the US contends with issues of populism and de-democratization, this timely study considers the impacts of digital technologies on the country’s politics and society. Timcke provides a Marxist analysis of the rise of digital media, social networks and technology giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. He looks at the impact of these new platforms and technologies on their users who have made them among the most valuable firms in the world. Offering bold new thinking across data politics and digital and economic sociology, this is a powerful demonstration of how algorithms have come to shape everyday life and political legitimacy in the US and beyond.
This easy-to-follow introduction to computer science reveals how familiar stories like Hansel and Gretel, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Potter illustrate the concepts and everyday relevance of computing. Picture a computer scientist, staring at a screen and clicking away frantically on a keyboard, hacking into a system, or perhaps developing an app. Now delete that picture. In Once Upon an Algorithm, Martin Erwig explains computation as something that takes place beyond electronic computers, and computer science as the study of systematic problem solving. Erwig points out that many daily activities involve problem solving. Getting up in the morning, for example: You get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast. This simple daily routine solves a recurring problem through a series of well-defined steps. In computer science, such a routine is called an algorithm. Erwig illustrates a series of concepts in computing with examples from daily life and familiar stories. Hansel and Gretel, for example, execute an algorithm to get home from the forest. The movie Groundhog Day illustrates the problem of unsolvability; Sherlock Holmes manipulates data structures when solving a crime; the magic in Harry Potter’s world is understood through types and abstraction; and Indiana Jones demonstrates the complexity of searching. Along the way, Erwig also discusses representations and different ways to organize data; “intractable” problems; language, syntax, and ambiguity; control structures, loops, and the halting problem; different forms of recursion; and rules for finding errors in algorithms. This engaging book explains computation accessibly and shows its relevance to daily life. Something to think about next time we execute the algorithm of getting up in the morning.
Probably Approximately Correct by Leslie Valiant Pdf
We have effective theories for very few things. Gravity is one, electromagnetism another. But for most things—whether as mundane as finding a mate or as major as managing an economy—our theories are lousy or nonexistent. Fortunately, we don't need them, any more than a fish needs a theory of water to swim; we're able to muddle through. But how do we do it? In Probably Approximately Correct, computer scientist Leslie Valiant presents a theory of the theoryless. The key is “probably approximately correct” learning, Valiant's model of how anything can act without needing to understand what is going on. The study of probably approximately correct algorithms reveals the shared computational nature of evolution and cognition, indicates how computers might possess authentic intelligence, and shows why hacking a problem can be far more effective than developing a theory to explain it. After all, finding a mate is a lot more satisfying than finding a theory of mating. Offering an elegant, powerful model that encompasses all of life's complexity, Probably Approximately Correct will revolutionize the way we look at the universe's greatest mysteries.
Algorithms Unplugged by Berthold Vöcking,Helmut Alt,Martin Dietzfelbinger,Rüdiger Reischuk,Christian Scheideler,Heribert Vollmer,Dorothea Wagner Pdf
Algorithms specify the way computers process information and how they execute tasks. Many recent technological innovations and achievements rely on algorithmic ideas – they facilitate new applications in science, medicine, production, logistics, traffic, communi¬cation and entertainment. Efficient algorithms not only enable your personal computer to execute the newest generation of games with features unimaginable only a few years ago, they are also key to several recent scientific breakthroughs – for example, the sequencing of the human genome would not have been possible without the invention of new algorithmic ideas that speed up computations by several orders of magnitude. The greatest improvements in the area of algorithms rely on beautiful ideas for tackling computational tasks more efficiently. The problems solved are not restricted to arithmetic tasks in a narrow sense but often relate to exciting questions of nonmathematical flavor, such as: How can I find the exit out of a maze? How can I partition a treasure map so that the treasure can only be found if all parts of the map are recombined? How should I plan my trip to minimize cost? Solving these challenging problems requires logical reasoning, geometric and combinatorial imagination, and, last but not least, creativity – the skills needed for the design and analysis of algorithms. In this book we present some of the most beautiful algorithmic ideas in 41 articles written in colloquial, nontechnical language. Most of the articles arose out of an initiative among German-language universities to communicate the fascination of algorithms and computer science to high-school students. The book can be understood without any prior knowledge of algorithms and computing, and it will be an enlightening and fun read for students and interested adults.
A field manual to the technologies that are transforming our lives Everywhere we turn, a startling new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future. We already depend on the smartphone to navigate every aspect of our existence. We’re told that innovations—from augmented-reality interfaces and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving cars—will make life easier, more convenient and more productive. 3D printing promises unprecedented control over the form and distribution of matter, while the blockchain stands to revolutionize everything from the recording and exchange of value to the way we organize the mundane realities of the day to day. And, all the while, fiendishly complex algorithms are operating quietly in the background, reshaping the economy, transforming the fundamental terms of our politics and even redefining what it means to be human. Having successfully colonized everyday life, these radical technologies are now conditioning the choices available to us in the years to come. How do they work? What challenges do they present to us, as individuals and societies? Who benefits from their adoption? In answering these questions, Greenfield’s timely guide clarifies the scale and nature of the crisis we now confront —and offers ways to reclaim our stake in the future.
A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence by Kartik Hosanagar Pdf
A Wharton professor and tech entrepreneur examines how algorithms and artificial intelligence are starting to run every aspect of our lives, and how we can shape the way they impact us Through the technology embedded in almost every major tech platform and every web-enabled device, algorithms and the artificial intelligence that underlies them make a staggering number of everyday decisions for us, from what products we buy, to where we decide to eat, to how we consume our news, to whom we date, and how we find a job. We've even delegated life-and-death decisions to algorithms--decisions once made by doctors, pilots, and judges. In his new book, Kartik Hosanagar surveys the brave new world of algorithmic decision-making and reveals the potentially dangerous biases they can give rise to as they increasingly run our lives. He makes the compelling case that we need to arm ourselves with a better, deeper, more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of algorithmic thinking. And he gives us a route in, pointing out that algorithms often think a lot like their creators--that is, like you and me. Hosanagar draws on his experiences designing algorithms professionally--as well as on history, computer science, and psychology--to explore how algorithms work and why they occasionally go rogue, what drives our trust in them, and the many ramifications of algorithmic decision-making. He examines episodes like Microsoft's chatbot Tay, which was designed to converse on social media like a teenage girl, but instead turned sexist and racist; the fatal accidents of self-driving cars; and even our own common, and often frustrating, experiences on services like Netflix and Amazon. A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence is an entertaining and provocative look at one of the most important developments of our time and a practical user's guide to this first wave of practical artificial intelligence.
Algorithmic Puzzles by Anany Levitin,Maria Levitin Pdf
Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.
A playful, profound book that is not only a testament to one man's efforts to be deemed more human than a computer, but also a rollicking exploration of what it means to be human in the first place. “Terrific. ... Art and science meet an engaged mind and the friction produces real fire.” —The New Yorker Each year, the AI community convenes to administer the famous (and famously controversial) Turing test, pitting sophisticated software programs against humans to determine if a computer can “think.” The machine that most often fools the judges wins the Most Human Computer Award. But there is also a prize, strange and intriguing, for the “Most Human Human.” Brian Christian—a young poet with degrees in computer science and philosophy—was chosen to participate in a recent competition. This