![]() He describes Google’s goal of anticipating our questions, Uber’s cartoon maps and black box accounting, and what Facebook tells us about programmable value, among other things. He examines the development of intelligent assistants like Siri, the rise of algorithmic aesthetics at Netflix, Ian Bogost’s satiric Facebook game Cow Clicker, and the revolutionary economics of Bitcoin. 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. 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.įinn argues that the algorithm deploys concepts from the idealized space of computation in a messy reality, with unpredictable and sometimes fascinating results. ![]() Computation casts a cultural shadow that is shaped by this long tradition of magical thinking. Humans have always believed that certain invocations-the marriage vow, the shaman’s curse-do not merely describe the world but make it. 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. ![]() We depend on-we believe in-algorithms to help us get a ride, choose which book to buy, execute a mathematical proof. ![]()
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