What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing
272
What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing
272Hardcover
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Overview
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.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262035927 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MIT Press |
| Publication date: | 03/10/2017 |
| Series: | The MIT Press |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
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.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 What Is an Algorithm? 15
2 Building the Star Trek Computer 57
3 House of Cards: The Aesthetics of Abstraction 87
4 Coding Cow Clicker. The Work of Algorithms 113
5 Counting Bitcoin 151
Coda: The Algorithmic Imagination 181
Notes 197
Works Cited 213
Figure Credits 233
Index 235
What People are Saying About This
Perhaps the greatest power in our society today—computation—remains unexamined in a cultural way. Ed Finn calls it our magic;what is present, powerful but unseen. Finn will help you see it.
This is a brilliant and important work. I know of no other book that so ably describes the cultural work that algorithms do. Once you read this you won't think of algorithms as mere batches of code that guide processes. You will see them as actors in the world.
The 'algorithmic imagination'—Professor Finn's evocative concept—connects the generative machine and the intelligently creative human.Think about the suggestions that appear in the search field when you begin to enter a term; that is the algorithmic imagination at work in the culture machine known as the Internet. Through a series of provocative chapters, Finn explores encounters that mark the emergence of algorithmic culture—the search for the Star Trek computer, Bitcoin, etc.He reveals the messy entanglements of these culture machines as they both draw on and shape human culture.
Beautifully crafted, technically lucid, and admirably precise, What Algorithms Want offers humanists a timely tutorial in the concept of the algorithm, while also offering a high-level analysis and sharp critique of algorithmic processes as they are implemented for and by us in our everyday media environments. But its true gift is the modeling of 'algorithmic reading,' a method that shows us how to become better readers—and makers—of culture and culture machines alike. Everyone who wonders 'how Netflix, Apple, or Google knows' needs to read this book.
Beautifully crafted, technically lucid, and admirably precise, What Algorithms Want offers humanists a timely tutorial in the concept of the algorithm, while also offering a high-level analysis and sharp critique of algorithmic processes as they are implemented for and by us in our everyday media environments. But its true gift is the modeling of 'algorithmic reading,' a method that shows us how to become better readers—and makers—of culture and culture machines alike. Everyone who wonders 'how Netflix, Apple, or Google knows' needs to read this book.
—Rita Raley, Associate Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
Deeply researched and meticulously reasoned in a style that will meet academic standards while being hugely enjoyable and interesting to a general audience. Equally comfortable talking about Perry Mason and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ed Finn surveys a broad sweep of today's business and cultural worlds while explaining how they got to be that way in a historical context reaching back centuries.
—Neal Stephenson, author of Seveneves, Reamde, and Snow CrashPerhaps the greatest power in our society today—computation—remains unexamined in a cultural way. Ed Finn calls it our magic; what is present, powerful but unseen. Finn will help you see it.
—Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick, Wired magazineThe 'algorithmic imagination'—Professor Finn's evocative concept—connects the generative machine and the intelligently creative human. Think about the suggestions that appear in the search field when you begin to enter a term; that is the algorithmic imagination at work in the culture machine known as the Internet. Through a series of provocative chapters, Finn explores encounters that mark the emergence of algorithmic culture—the search for the Star Trek computer, Bitcoin, etc. He reveals the messy entanglements of these culture machines as they both draw on and shape human culture.
—Anne Balsamo, Dean, School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication, University of Texas, DallasThis is a brilliant and important work. I know of no other book that so ably describes the cultural work that algorithms do. Once you read this you won't think of algorithms as mere batches of code that guide processes. You will see them as actors in the world.
—Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)Beautifully crafted, technically lucid, and admirably precise, What Algorithms Want offers humanists a timely tutorial in the concept of the algorithm, while also offering a high-level analysis and sharp critique of algorithmic processes as they are implemented for and by us in our everyday media environments. But its true gift is the modeling of 'algorithmic reading,' a method that shows us how to become better readers—and makers—of culture and culture machines alike. Everyone who wonders 'how Netflix, Apple, or Google knows' needs to read this book.
—Rita Raley, Associate Professor of English, University of California, Santa BarbaraDeeply researched and meticulously reasoned in a style that will meet academic standards while being hugely enjoyable and interesting to a general audience. Equally comfortable talking about Perry Mason and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ed Finn surveys a broad sweep of today's business and cultural worlds while explaining how they got to be that way in a historical context reaching back centuries.