Algorithms are everywhere. They rule our lives. They decide what we see on social media, which ads get targeted to us, which route we should take to get places. If it used to be The Man keeping us ...

I outsourced several of my daily decisions to algorithms for a week, to better understand the lines of code playing a greater and greater role in guiding our lives. Jesse Orrall (he/him/his) is a ...

I was halfway through a master’s in Computer Science when my vision changed. I was working as a data scientist during my summer off from school, and I had friends who said things like “I’m at a local ...

If Nielsen stats are to be believed, we collectively spend more time in front of YouTube than any other streaming service—including Disney+ and Netflix. That's a lot of watch hours, especially for an ...

There came a point, not so long ago, when I realized that my Netflix algorithm had become a Black Mirror of a different kind, reflecting the very worst parts of my persona. Sure, I went through a ...

Since I’ve become a patient and advocate, my social media algorithm now mostly shows cancer-related content. Here’s an open letter to said algorithm, or as I call it, “Algo.” I have only myself to ...

Algorithms are getting bad press lately, appearing in headlines with adjectives like dangerous, toxic and sinister. Algorithms are not new; the concept was described by the 9th century Persian ...

Is my car hallucinating? Is the algorithm that runs the police surveillance system in my city paranoid? Marvin the android in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had a pain in all the ...

It wasn’t so long ago that Uber started a revolution in work: managing workers—or is it freelancers?—via an algorithm-driven app. The gig economy was born. Its promise was to save consumers money and ...

Racial discrimination by algorithms or by people is harmful — but that’s where the similarities end. By Sendhil Mullainathan In one study published 15 years ago, two people applied for a job. Their ...