What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing (Hardcover)

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.

我們依賴 - 我們相信 - 演算法能幫助我們搭車、選擇要買哪本書、執行數學證明。這就好像我們把程式碼當作魔法咒語，一種揭示我們需要知道甚至想要的東西的咒語。人類一直相信某些祈禱 - 婚姻誓言、巫師的詛咒 - 不僅僅是在描述世界，而是在創造它。計算在文化上投下了一個陰影，這個陰影受到這種長期以來的魔法思維傳統的塑造。在這本書中，艾德·芬恩考慮了演算法 - 在實際上是指「解決問題的方法」 - 不僅在數學邏輯中有根基，也在控制論、哲學和魔法思維中有根基。

芬恩認為，演算法在混亂的現實中運用了計算的理想空間中的概念，帶來了不可預測且有時迷人的結果。他引用了從尼爾·史蒂芬森的《雪崩》到狄德羅的《百科全書》、從亞當·斯密到《星際迷航》電腦的各種資料來源，探討了理論觀念與實用指令之間的差距。他研究了像Siri這樣的智能助手的發展，Netflix上演算美學的崛起，伊恩·博戈斯特（Ian Bogost）諷刺性的Facebook遊戲《牛點擊器》（Cow Clicker），以及比特幣的革命性經濟學。他描述了Google預測我們問題的目標，Uber的卡通地圖和黑盒會計，以及Facebook對可編程價值的說明，等等。

芬恩認為，如果我們想要理解抽象和混亂現實之間的差距，我們需要建立一個「演算法閱讀」和學術研究的模型，關注過程，引領一個新的實驗性人文學科。