What Algorithms Want - Imagination in the Age of Computing

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We depend on--we believein--algorithms to help us get a ride, choose which book to buy, execute a mathematical proof. 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. Drawing on sources that range from Neal stephenson's Snow Crash to Diderot's Encyclopedie, from Adam Smith to the Star Trek computer, Finn explores the gap between theoretical ideas and pragmatic instructions. He examines the development of intelligent assistants like Apple's Siri, the rise of algorithmic aesthetics at Netflix, Ian Bogost's satiric Facebook game Cow Clicker, and the revolutionary economics of Bitcoin. Finn describes Google's goal of anticipating our questions, Uber's cartoon maps and black box accounting, and what Facebook tells us about programmable value. If we want to understand the gap between abstraction and messy reality, Finn argues, we need to build a model of "algorithmic reading" and scholarship that attends to process, spearheading a new experimental humanities