Algorithm Quotes

“In algorithms, as in life, persistence usually pays off.”

“The next question is how? How does news find us? What you need is a certain critical literacy about the fact that you are almost always subject to an algorithm. The most powerful thing in your world now is an algorithm about which you know nothing about.”

“Paulo noticed the creature’s swift and frantic breathing and the drop of red staining the ground beneath, but above all he saw the bird’s uppermost eye, wide open and fixed on his. That single eye reflected panic and despair on a scale he had never before witnessed. It was both tiny and enormous, and with every passing moment it seemed to expand, encompassing the trees, the landscape, the sky. That look stilled the wind and darkened the day and, at a glance, transformed a moment of ecstasy into a bottomless pit of guilt."From "The Algorithm of Power", Part 3: The Paulo Fontana Story”

“An algorithm must be seen to be believed.”

“The problem with Google is you have 360 degrees of omnidirectional information on a linear basis, but the algorithms for irony and ambiguity are not there. And those are the algorithms of wisdom.”

“Functional societies need algorithms which reward us for being of service to those who need it most. Instead we have algorithms which reward us for being of service to those who need it least”

“Dawes observed that the complex statistical algorithm adds little or no value. One can do just as well by selecting a set of scores that have some validity for predicting the outcome and adjusting the values to make them comparable (by using standard scores or ranks). A formula that combines these predictors with equal weights is likely to be just as accurate in predicting new cases as the multiple-regression formula that was optimal in the original sample. More recent research went further: formulas that assign equal weights to all the predictors are often superior, because they are not affected by accidents of sampling.”

“Our vocabulary may become a real time algorithmic word bank. Could you imagine having a conversation like that? Where the meaning of words constantly adapts?”

“When we go online, we commit ourselves to the care of online mechanisms. Digital Band-Aids for digital wounds. We feed ourselves into machines, hoping some algorithm will digest the mess that is our experience into something legible, something more meaningful than the "bag of associations" we fear we are.”

“The algorithms that orchestrate our ads are starting to orchestrate our lives.”