What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing - Hardcover

Finn, Ed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262035928 ISBN 13: 9780262035927

Verlag: The MIT Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

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. 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. 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. 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.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: The MIT Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0262035928
• ISBN 13: 9780262035927
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 257
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar