An edition of What algorithms want (2017)

What algorithms want

imagination in the age of computing

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What algorithms want
Ed Finn, Ed Finn
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  • 4.3 (3 ratings)
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Last edited by ImportBot
August 17, 2024 | History
An edition of What algorithms want (2017)

What algorithms want

imagination in the age of computing

  • 4.3 (3 ratings)
  • 2 Want to read
  • 3 Have read

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.--Publisher website.

Publish Date
Publisher
MIT Press
Language
English
Pages
257

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Edition Availability
Cover of: What Algorithms Want
What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing
2017, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: What algorithms want
What algorithms want: imagination in the age of computing
2017, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: What Algorithms Want
What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing
2017, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: What Algorithms Want
What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing
2017, MIT Press
in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
What is an algorithm?
Building the star trek computer
House of cards: the aesthetics of abstraction
Coding cow clicker: the work of algorithms
Counting bitcoin
Coda: the algorithmic imagination
Notes
Figure credits
Works cited
Index.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
303.48/34
Library of Congress
HM851 .F5565 2017, HM851.F5565 2018, HM851.F5565 2017

The Physical Object

Pagination
viii, 257 pages
Number of pages
257

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL27234397M
ISBN 10
0262035928
ISBN 13
9780262035927, 9780262536042
LCCN
2016030924
OCLC/WorldCat
958795990

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL20054382W

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August 17, 2024 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
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August 25, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 19, 2019 Created by MARC Bot Imported from marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record