The Age of Algorithms

Algorithms will be what we want them to be: we must choose the world we want to live in.

Serge Abiteboul (Author), Gilles Dowek (Author)

9781108484572, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 April 2020

166 pages
22.2 x 14.4 x 1.3 cm, 0.32 kg

'This short and interesting book provides a non-technical introduction to the age of algorithms. The book is worth reading many times even by those unfamiliar with algorithms or computer science.' S.V. Nagaraj, The SIGACT News

Algorithms are probably the most sophisticated tools that people have had at their disposal since the beginnings of human history. They have transformed science, industry, society. They upset the concepts of work, property, government, private life, even humanity. Going easily from one extreme to the other, we rejoice that they make life easier for us, but fear that they will enslave us. To get beyond this vision of good vs evil, this book takes a new look at our time, the age of algorithms. Creations of the human spirit, algorithms are what we made them. And they will be what we want them to be: it's up to us to choose the world we want to live in.

1. Algorithms intrigue, algorithms disturb
2. What is an algorithm?
3. Algorithms, computers, and programs
4. What algorithms do
5. What algorithms don't do
6. Computational thinking
7. The end of employment
8. The end of work
9. The end of property
10. Governing in the age of algorithms
11. An algorithm in the community
12. The responsibility of algorithms
13. Personal data and privacy
14. Fairness, transparency, and diversity
15. Computers and ecology
16. Computer science education
17. The augmented human
18. Can an algorithm be intelligent?
19. Can an algorithm have feelings? 20. Time to choose.

Subject Areas: Artificial intelligence [UYQ], Algorithms & data structures [UMB], Technology: general issues [TB], Popular science [PDZ], Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Philosophy of science [PDA], Labour economics [KCF], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD], Sociology [JHB], Social & political philosophy [HPS]