A Human’s Guide To Machine Intelligence (English, Hardcover, Kartik Hosanagar)

A Wharton professor and tech entrepreneur examines how algorithms and artificial intelligence are starting to run every aspect of our lives, and how we can shape the way they impact us

Through the technology embedded in almost every major tech platform and every web-enabled device, algorithms and the artificial intelligence that underlies them make a staggering number of everyday decisions for us, from what products we buy, to where we decide to eat, to how we consume our news, to whom we date, and how we find a job. We’ve even delegated life-and-death decisions to algorithms–decisions once made by doctors, pilots, and judges. In his new book, Kartik Hosanagar, who was recognized in 2011 by Poets & Quaints as one of the “Top 40 Business Professors Under 40,” surveys the brave new world of algorithmic decision-making and reveals the potentially dangerous biases they can give rise to as they increasingly run our lives. He makes the compelling case that we need to arm ourselves with a better, deeper, more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of algorithmic thinking. And he gives us a route in, pointing out that algorithms often think a lot like their creators–that is, like you and me.

Hosanagar draws on his experiences designing algorithms professionally–as well as on history, computer science, and psychology–to explore how algorithms work and why they occasionally go rogue, what drives our trust in them, and the many ramifications of algorithmic decision-making. He examines episodes like the 2010 Flash Crash in the stock market–in which more than a trillion dollars in market value were wiped away in thirty-six minutes–the 2016 defeat of human Go champion Lee Sedol to the AlphaGo computer program, and even our own common, and often frustrating, experiences on services like Netflix and Amazon. The result is an entertaining and provocative look at one of the most important developments of our time and a practical user’s guide to this first wave of practical artificial intelligence.

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