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This week, following on from my review of Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s Inventing Ourselves, I’m looking at another popular science paperback.
Hello World by Hannah Fry is a fascinating look at the algorithms that govern our lives. It examines the good and bad of machine learning and asks important questions, such as should a computer be in charge of clinical diagnosis or criminal sentencing, and can an algorithm be an artist?
What is Hello World?
It’s a super-accessible overview of how algorithms are used in our everyday lives. Written by Hannah Fry, Associate Professor in mathematics at UCL, Hello World tries to demystify exactly what an algorithm is and explain how useful they are. It also goes some way to explaining what algorithms can’t do, and how humans can be a little too slavish in following an algorithm’s results.
The book is broken down into several broad sections and explains how algorithms are used in a particular facet of society such as driving or crime. For a given topic, Hello World looks at the potential flaws of commonly used algorithms and examines how these flaws can be mitigated.
The book opens by explaining how algorithms wield power; how they can include or exclude. The first chapter also explains what an algorithm is and how they have…
