What Algorithms Want
Subtitle
Imagination in the Age of Computing
We depend on—we believe in—algorithms to help us get a ride, choose which book to buy, execute a mathematical proof. It’s as if we think of code as a magic spell, an incantation to reveal what we need to know and even what we want. Humans have always believed that certain invocations—the marriage vow, the shaman’s curse—do not merely describe the world but make it. Computation casts a cultural shadow that is shaped by this long tradition of magical thinking. In this book, Ed Finn considers how the algorithm—in practical terms, “a method for solving a problem”—has its roots not only in mathematical logic but also in cybernetics, philosophy, and magical thinking.
Finn argues that the algorithm deploys concepts from the idealized space of computation in a messy reality, with unpredictable and sometimes fascinating results. Drawing on sources that range from Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash to Diderot’s Encyclopédie, from Adam Smith to the Star Trek computer, Finn explores the gap between theoretical ideas and pragmatic instructions.
Bio
Ed Finn is Founding Director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, where he is also Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the School of Arts, Media, and Engineering and the Department of English.
Praise for this book
Perhaps the greatest power in our society today—computation—remains unexamined in a cultural way. Ed Finn calls it our magic; what is present, powerful but unseen. Finn will help you see it.
Kevin Kelly Senior Maverick, Wired magazine
“This is a brilliant and important work. I know of no other book that so ably describes the cultural work that algorithms do. Once you read this you won’t think of algorithms as mere batches of code that guide processes. You will see them as actors in the world.”
Siva Vaidhyanathan author of "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)"
