To examine, analyze, and manipulate a problem to the point of designing an algorithm for solving it is an exercise of fundamental value in many fields. With so many everyday activities governed by algorithmic principles, the power, precision, reliability and speed of execution demanded by users have transformed the design and construction of algorithms from a creative, artisanal activity into a full-fledged science in its own right. This book is aimed at all those who exploit the results of this new science, as designers and as consumers. The first chapter is an overview of the related history, demonstrating the long development of ideas such as recursion and more recent formalizations such as computability. The second chapter shows how the design of algorithms requires appropriate techniques and sophisticated organization of data. In the subsequent chapters the contributing authors present examples from diverse areas – such as routing and networking problems, Web search, information security, auctions and games, complexity and randomness, and the life sciences – that show how algorithmic thinking offers practical solutions and also deepens domain knowledge. The contributing authors are top-class researchers with considerable academic and industrial experience; they are also excellent educators and communicators and they draw on this experience with enthusiasm and humor. This book is an excellent introduction to an intriguing domain and it will be enjoyed by undergraduate and postgraduate students in computer science, engineering, and mathematics, and more broadly by all those engaged with algorithmic thinking.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction: the power of algorithms -- A society, searching -- Searching for Black girls -- Searching for people and communities -- Searching for protections from search engines -- The future of knowledge in the public -- The future of information culture -- Conclusion: algorithms of oppression -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the author

The vast circulations of mobile devices, sensors and data mean that the social world is now defined by a complex interweaving of human and machine agency. Key to this is the growing power of algorithms – the decision-making parts of code – in our software dense and data rich environments. Algorithms can shape how we are retreated, what we know, who we connect with and what we encounter, and they present us with some important questions about how society operates and how we understand it. This book offers a series of concepts, approaches and ideas for understanding the relations between algorithms and power. Each chapter provides a unique perspective on the integration of algorithms into the social world. As such, this book directly tackles some of the most important questions facing the social sciences today. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

We live in an algorithmic society. Algorithms have become the main mediator through which power is enacted in our society. This book brings together three academic fields – Public Administration, Criminal Justice and Urban Governance – into a single conceptual framework, and offers a broad cultural-political analysis, addressing critical and ethical issues of algorithms. Governments are increasingly turning towards algorithms to predict criminality, deliver public services, allocate resources, and calculate recidivism rates. Mind-boggling amounts of data regarding our daily actions are analysed to make decisions that manage, control, and nudge our behaviour in everyday life. The contributions in this book offer a broad analysis of the mechanisms and social implications of algorithmic governance. Reporting from the cutting edge of scientific research, the result is illuminating and useful for understanding the relations between algorithms and power.Topics covered include: Algorithmic governmentality Transparency and accountability Fairness in criminal justice and predictive policing Principles of good digital administration Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the smart city This book is essential reading for students and scholars of Sociology, Criminology, Public Administration, Political Sciences, and Cultural Theory interested in the integration of algorithms into the governance of society.

The gap between theoretical ideas and messy reality, as seen in Neal Stephenson, Adam Smith, and Star Trek. 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. 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. 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.

'Algorithms to Live By' looks at the simple, precise algorithms that computers use to solve the complex 'human' problems that we face, and discovers what they can tell us about the nature and origin of the mind.

What identity means in an algorithmic age: how it works, how our lives are controlled by it, and how we can resist it Algorithms are everywhere, organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world, but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline. Algorithms create and recreate us, using our data to assign and reassign our gender, race, sexuality, and citizenship status. They can recognize us as celebrities or mark us as terrorists. In this era of ubiquitous surveillance, contemporary data collection entails more than gathering information about us. Entities like Google, Facebook, and the NSA also decide what that information means, constructing our worlds and the identities we inhabit in the process. We have little control over who we algorithmically are. Our identities are made useful not for us—but for someone else. Through a series of entertaining and engaging examples, John Cheney-Lippold draws on the social constructions of identity to advance a new understanding of our algorithmic identities. We Are Data will educate and inspire readers who want to wrest back some freedom in our increasingly surveilled and algorithmically-constructed world.