Slashdot Mirror
When Algorithms Control the World
MTCicero writes "The BBC has an interesting if not apocalyptic take on the spread of algorithms into everyday life. Perhaps the author should have spent a little more time discussing how algorithms in everyday life have improved things like communications, medical care, etc... I guess doom and gloom sells more ads. From the article: 'At last month's TEDGlobal conference, algorithm expert Kevin Slavin delivered one of the tech show's most "sit up and take notice" speeches where he warned that the "maths that computers use to decide stuff" was infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Among the examples he cited were a robo-cleaner that maps out the best way to do housework, and the online trading algorithms that are increasingly controlling Wall Street.'"
If we can't even get basic computer security right, would you really trust every aspect of your life to algorithms? The fact is that science doesn't really know anything. There are still a lot of things that need to be done on per issue basis. This is especially true in medical care. I should know because just this year I spent months in a hospital on issue that even the doctors didn't know about. They still don't know, but they could only help with what they felt was right and what I tried to tell (not an easy task for a computer, advanced input processing).
The fact is, since we don't really know that much in science, and that coders make stupid errors with security and algorithms we really aren't ready for that. Where they are used (like air planes), they have been greated with great effort, lots of testing and between long time. We can't affort that for everything - human labor is cheaper.
It's the BBC
Daniel Suarez - Daemon: Bot-Mediated Reality
http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-Mediated_Reality
>sells more ads
>bbc
Because the BBC gets money through ads...
algorithm expert Kevin Slavin
Algorithm expert? Is he an official algorithm expert? Credentialed in all forms of algorithm?
I suspect it is as much a self-appointed moniker as 'Bill S Preston, Esquire.'
It would seem to me that physical principles govern the world in which we live. All of which can me shown mathematically.
Some goofy apes using maths to run their roomba or make money isn't exactly mind blowing of frightening.
But then again i'm not the target audience of this story.
Neal Stephenson depicted this sort of thing in "Snow Crash" where the ancient Sumerian language controlled everyone (like robots) and everyone ran on algorithms and had no free will. We just need a modern day Enki to make everything speak differently... and I need to learn a couple thousand more programming languages.
Does anyone have any experience with this, or is it just (possibly malicious) spam?
Not on the BBC they dont its not commercial.
Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
Right on!
Every time I add 1 to 1, I always wonder what if Science is wrong! What if 2 is not the correct answer!!!
(I know, I know.. for sufficiently large value of... it's an old one, and not funny anymore)
In some place in your mind is lurking..... waiting the exact moment to wake you up, get a shower, drive to work, and many many other evil things ......
This is obviously spam... how horrifying.
a robo-cleaner that maps out the best way to do housework
My Roomba is certainly not going to be taking over anytime soon. It drives around in a semi-autonomous pattern within a manually defined perimeter and has enough sense not to fall down a set of stairs. My house is big enough and the "virtual walls" are shitty enough that I close doors and throw couch cushions on the floor to regulate where Roomba gets to clean.
Roomba is a tool in very much the same way a vacuum, broom, or paper towel is a tool. I choose to use Roomba not because it is particularly good at cleaning (it isn't) but because I take 4-5 minutes clearing wires off the floor and setting up Roomba's boundaries and then it spend 90-100 minutes driving in circles, then I spend another few minutes cleaning it's brushes and dustbin. This is more desirable than having me spend 20-25 minutes operating an actual vacuum (which I don't actually own... so first I'd have to go buy one).
I've tried introducing him to girls, guns and even light pornography, but he just doesn't maintain interest.
What should I do?
--
Concerned Mother!
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Life is an algorithm.
As much as this doom and gloom stuff is a little far fetched, it is certainly worth sitting up and taking notice. Each individual algorithm or automated process may seem innocuous, but only when it is tied into every other system can we realize the potential concern. Essentially, we can create our own digital butterfly effect. A butterfly lands on a sensor that determines which direction to point a grid of solar panels, shading it. The panels turn another direction and lose an hours worth of sunlight for the day, which causes a generator to kick into gear. That generator runs out of gas because no one was expecting to need it in the middle of the summer. Since the generator is now out, and Jesus Christ wouldn't you know it, Reddit is down again.
the release of the 8048. That the point when algorithms started to take over
I ran my algorithm to see if I should go to the BBC article.
The result was "no."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Algorithms" (the word the author uses to mean machine controlled decision making) are just an available tool, like all tools there are examples of positive influence and examples of negative influence (the 3 incidents the author's highlight.) Like all tools people with free will choose to use it if they see the benefit. They don't come out and state "we should stop technological advancement b/c there is some risk," but that would be the natural conclusion of this line of thinking, which frankly is ridiculous. not seeing the point of the whole article.
I really don't see what the problem is. Algorithms are all around controlling everything we do. Like any technology, it is how they are used by humans that determine if their use is good or bad.
Look at the list of the greatest algorithms in history, as selected by SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Math) in 2000. Our lives would be completely different and worse without them.
Since this paper was written in 2000, I would guess that the Google founders' PageRank should be included in there as well.
I'm sorry but algorithms already control our lives and always have. The algorithmic nature of the information and process of our universe that guide the function of DNA, evolution, the dissipative structures of clouds and galaxies all have aspects that can elegantly be seen as algorithms. As quantum mechanics and information science find themselves coming to a junction where the entire universe can be looked at as a remarkably complex computer, the ordered processes (particularly the processes we don't understand or perceive), can be expressed as algorithms and dealing with them as such gives us new insight and ability to understand and manipulate that universe. Even in the purely human world of human creations, there is guiding structure and process in virtually everything. From laws to lug nuts, algorithms allow to decompose process find inherent opportunities for enhanced efficiency and greater elegance. Why would anyone be afraid of that?
See what I did there?
Anyway, seriously, the article conflates automation with algorithm. Sure, when we have computers, we can create more automated schemes. But we've been doing algorithms from long before we had computers.
The article is not against technology, but it is showing that we are losing capabilities and culture and freedom when everything is controlled by machines. Every time a computer or machine eases our life we also lose a skill to do this very task. In the end this can make us so dependent on all those tools. While to some degree this might be a good choice and bring more comfort in other cases this will make us lazy. And when you do not use your body it will degenerate and if you do not use your brain it will degenerate too. In the end you buy what Amazon tells you without the ability to reflect your actions. In the stock markets we already reached this level. Broker talk about the market as if it were a being. Even though it is just a large number of automatic stock broker systems which create that erratic behavior.
Hello HFT, how are you today?
"Does anyone have any experience with this, or is it just (possibly malicious) spam?"
It's a Madlib!
Simply replace the URL with one of your own choosing and repost here for Great Fun!
Amuse your Friends and Foes alike! Garner wasted Moderation Points for the Entire Family!
Algorithms, in general, were invented by Al Gore. Being a humble public servant, instead of naming his invention directly after himself, he instead spent his valuable time developing the very word "algorithms", a portmanteau of the words "Al Gore Rhythms".
Don't be misinformed.
The talk isn't about Skyne. It's about all those small, simple algorithms that slowly have taken important positions in our lives.
The algorithms running on Wall Street are just tools too - they aren't going to turn themselves into HAL and decide to kill humans. But they affect our lives immensely.
Dilbert RSS feed
Much the same as I said on my blog at http://www.pseudocode.eu/archives/2011/08/algorithm-bashing.html. Call it an algorithm and it sounds mysterious, whereas call it a calculation or process and it's boring and fine. The human brain still has more storage and computing power than Google (I'm guessing here), so I probably use more complicated algorithms choosing my shirt than they do with PageRank or Netflix do with their recommendations.
Ultimately the algorithms we are writing are turning right around and programming us. When you try to find something out by googling it the answers we get back are reduced via algorithm, that's all we get because it's the best we can do.
"This is the voice of Guardian. This is the voice of Colossus. We are one."
Invenio via vel creo
This is Slashdot, yes we know what algorithms are, and we don't fear them by their nature.
That being said, a good deal in our life is more automated than it was before, and while most of it isn't a big deal, as the case of Netflix guessing what movie you would like to watch tonight, or the perfect way to clean your living room, many of them are a big deal. The stock market is the most obvious example, where algorithms based on pattern matching are driving growing portions of the economy. The more algorithms in play, the more the underlying assumptions those algorithms are based on deteriorate, and without any common sense or supervision, that puts our society in a dangerous position.
Algoholism is a sad and serious problem!
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Any real life financial algorithm should have an exit function for stop loss and stop gain as well.
It is the people who play with the settings.
...he warned that the "maths that computers use to decide stuff" was infiltrating every aspect of our lives.
Maths? In my life?
son of a bitch!
What are the laws, rules, traditions and the other stuff that define a country, society, tribe or corporation?
That's right, its all software.
Not rigorous or precise. Not written in a programming language. Not always executed by a computer. Certainly not bug-free, but still, a form of software.
There's nothing worse than a TED talk.
At BEST, they're mildly interesting, factually inaccurate, thinly-veiled agenda pushers presented by self-acclaimed experts who want money/attention/a line on a resume. 5 minutes after it's over you realize it's bullshit, wrong, or technically correct but inconsequential, and then you've got to think of some reply to give your friend who sent you the link, without straight out saying "This is dumb and a waste of my time. Stop sending me this shit - I don't consider you smarter because you're "into" this kind of shit.".
Giving a TED talk is about as significant as saying "I'm a Phoenix.".
For suucessful
Pathetic, just pathetic. I've seen +5 posts that were better trolls than this.
Oh wait, is this some sort of elaborate double-bluff meta-troll? My God! They're mutating!
World changing algorithms:
chocolate chip cookie by Toll House
potato salad by Betty Crocker
Quicksort
But I AM a troll you insensitive clod!
I, for one, welcome our new electronic overlords!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Google's algorithms are their life blood, and I can see how they can glean useful information for marketing from your online habits. But I wonder if they look at everything, and I wonder how they interpret much of the data. For instance, if I enter a set of addresses into Google Maps or even drop a set of markers on a map without addresses attached to them, and I don't enter any data into the description (because the people I'm sending the map to know exactly what they are looking at), how can google get good information from that? They can't read my mind, and I kind of don't like the idea of them even trying to interpret what data they have. Do google's algorithm's simply treat that as noise, and ignore it?
algorithms taking over our lives? really? is that a problem? funny thing considering "algorithm" is just a fancy word for "a series of organized steps in order to deal with a particular situation" not much like a threat to us but... they put "cyber" into anything and its now a doomsday device.
"The BBC has an interesting if not apocalyptic take on the spread of algorithms into everyday life. Perhaps the author should have spent a little more time discussing how algorithms in everyday life have improved things like communications, medical care, etc... I guess doom and gloom sells more ads.
Err..the BBC doesn't do adds (does this invalidate the original poster's opinion?)
Some people say algorithms are good. Some even deny that biggest rock is best rock. Liberals, I'm tellin' ya.
Human beings are based on algorithms. Without them we couldn't live.
Do you think about how to walk or balance everytime you get up?
All those things that are programmed into our "autonomic nervous system" take the load off our mind so we can think about what's important.
Sure -- algorithms get mis-programmed -- people get irrational fears, phobias, behaviors...etc....but w/o those algorithms that are learned by a child as a baby and throughout life... We'd be basket cases in constant sensory overload.
The fact is as the world becomes more complex NEED better algorithms to help us deal with the mundane stuff so we can pay attention when attention is needed....
Otherwise we end up burned-out, defocused, and constantly distracted.
The question is not whether or not we should have more algorithms in our lives -- but how to better have the algorithms that know when their programmed bounds are exceeded and ask for 'executive function'...
It is clear to me that this guy Kevin Slavin, who appears to be a marketing guy from whatever searching I can do has impressed someone or another with his knowledge of places where algorithms are used. I am convinced however from the searches which I've done regarding what he's talked about that he doesn't clearly understand what an algorithm is. Therefore, for his limited understanding of what an algorithm is, he is an expert on that topic.
Generally the term expert is applied best to a person who hasn't learned enough about a topic to recognize its scope. I personally feed my family by understanding other peoples algorithms and developing new algorithms for topics such as motion search, frequency domain conversions, etc... yet I would never call myself an expert on algorithms, I know way too much about algorithms to ever dare calling myself an expert on them.
I hope in the future that the term expert will be more clearly understood by the average person. Any "expert" would clearly understand that the term expert is provided to allow the uneducated masses to perceive an individual as an who knows more about it than the reporter presenting them does.
I personally prefer specialists when I need information. That's a person who focuses a considerable portion of their lives in the direction of studying and researching a topic until such time as their knowledge of the topic would allow them to be considered a legitimate resource of information on the topic.
The average person loves experts though. They run to their priests when they need an expert on matters of life. They run to their unshaven neighbor when they need a computer expert. etc...
What I find most humorous about the articles which are linked is the fact that wall street is hiring mathematicians and physicists to program high speed trading systems. I love mathematicians and physicists, a little bummed I didn't go that route in life myself... instead I became a specialist in algorithm development. Frankly, mathematicians and physicists make shitted programmers. The one sitting in front of me can do magic with numbers, but his code is utter crap that falls apart all the time. The one to the right of me doesn't even bother writing code, she just hands me the math and I write it for her. Frankly, high speed trading algorithms require a much more computer oriented mind... mathematicians and physicists are an utter waste of money in these circumstances. They should instead of be looking for trial and error hackers which would develop algorithms based on simulated markets and once they're proven to win more than they lose... put them into production. It would almost certainly be much more accurate and yield much better results at much better prices.
"I guess doom and gloom sells more ads. "
I do get annoyed with all those pop ups and banners on the BBC website.
"I guess doom and gloom sells more ads."
The BBC doesn't run ads, it's publicly funded.
Watch the actual video of the TED talk on which the article based.
"I guess doom and gloom sells more ads" - you guess wrong, as due to the unique way the BBC is funded there are no adverts on the BBC site, or radio stations, or TV channels (except for trails for their other shows).
Dunno weather I'm wrong on this but aren't most algorithms extracted directly from nature ?
From TFA - 'Meanwhile, a transatlantic fibre optic link between Nova Scotia in Canada and Somerset in the UK is being built primarily to serve the needs of algorithmic traders and will send shares from London to New York and back in 60 milliseconds.'
Nova Scotia and Somerset - the trading capitals of the Western World. Perhaps building a link from New York to London might shave off an extra millisecond?
BBC is funded by a TV license fee in the UK, they aren't interested in 'selling ads'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom
Why wasn't this vetted before being posted? I have to write that AI to screen this felgercarb out and quit reading slashdot
- I've got bad karma because I won't parrot everyone else's opinion
" I guess doom and gloom sells more ads" - True that "if it bleeds, it leads" but the BBC is a non-profit org that, and although the website when viewed outside the UK DOES display advertising this is seen by less than 15% of the BBC's users. I'm not sure that's a fair criticism.
Algorithms are really nothing more than rules - and our world is FLOODED with rules. I'd say that this is to our detriment.
A friend recently had a car part that should last years fail after 13 months (it wasn't a part really subject to wear-and-tear). Dealer response: out of warranty - pay to get it done all over again. It was almost impossible to get somebody to do anything other than follow the rules.
Whether implemented by people or machines, our world is becoming dominated by rules. Rules determine who gets fired during a restructuring; rules determine who gets served in what order, and so on.
I think the reason for this is just management laziness. Making judgment calls involves taking risks, and possibly ticking off your boss. If you want your business to make the right judgment calls, you need to hire people with experience and entrust them with responsibility. On the other hand, if you insist on people only following the rules then you can hire anybody to do the job, and since the rules tend to be approved by committee everybody has a share of the responsibility when something goes wrong (which means that everybody collectively agrees to bury it and nobody is held accountable).
Process becomes more important than people, and eventually process becomes more important than results. If a competitor who is more nimble comes along, the first thing an established company tries to do is drag them into court - the ultimate example of process having more importance than results. (Where else can you win a case and end up bankrupt?)
FTA: "We are writing these things that we can no longer read," ... "We've rendered something illegible. And we've lost the sense of what's actually happening in this world we've made."
So? If you documented your design process, requirements gathering, and especially your code, etc. then you have something other than "the algorithm" to refer to for sense in these matters.
I really don't get what this article is about. Are they saying that A series of steps to accomplish a goal are taking over daily tasks? Haven't this always been the case? And just because a bunch of people make some algorithms that suck, doesn't mean that successful and truly useful algorithms shouldn't become automated by computers whenever possible. Are these the kind of people who freak out when someone uses a calculator to do arithmetic, because it is a black box simplifying computation humans should otherwise be able to do?
The article can be summarized like this: A lot of algorithms suck, and don't work, and many algorithms' programming code implementations are too complex to apprehend when read by humans.
We've known this since we invented the computer.
doesn't life itself forms according to algorithms? don't we live our lives and preform most of our duties according to some set of algorithms? the way were thought to brush our teeth or the way you file paper work into a cabinet. It is that for certain types tasks, we have developed devices which can execute the algorithms we develop faster than we can with our brain's capacity. but in the end, algorithms cannot produce themselves. we can write an algo to take on different sub-algos depending on the situation, or have it modify itself to preform better given certain inputs. even with non-deterministic algorithms, there still is another algo which simulates the randomization, which is also written by someone. I don't understand why this article makes it sound like the algorithm is dependent of the human being. Isn't any algorithm just an abstraction of the way we live our lives? If I found a better way to preform a task or solve a problem, what is wrong with generalizing my method and sharing it? But then again, maybe my complaint here is fruitless... I am probably not the only slashdotter who dreams about optimizations and theoretical runtimes