Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms in Science and Inquiry

Feb 02, 2020 Paul Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2020, science, female-author, english-author, non-fiction, ideas, british-author

An excellent overview of the past, present and future of how computational algorithms shape our world, from the estimable Dr Hannah Fry.

In seven sections - Power, Data, Justice, Medicine, Cars, Crime & Art - Fry give examples, background, threats and potentials of this incredibly powerful IT tool. The examples are well chosen - some I knew, some were new to me - and she uses each as a jumping-off point to discuss the effect not only of the technology itself, but of the cultural, societal and int An excellent overview of the past, present and future of how computational algorithms shape our world, from the estimable Dr Hannah Fry.

In seven sections - Power, Data, Justice, Medicine, Cars, Crime & Art - Fry give examples, background, threats and potentials of this incredibly powerful IT tool. The examples are well chosen - some I knew, some were new to me - and she uses each as a jumping-off point to discuss the effect not only of the technology itself, but of the cultural, societal and intellectual ways we interact with it. Is what we expect from it realistic or, indeed, desirable?

She uses the well-known example of Idaho Medicaid recipients being stripped of essential benefits by an 'algorithm' that eventually was revealed to be nothing more than a badly constructed Excel spreadsheet to discuss how much we should (or shouldn't) trust the Black Box, of how facial recognition and crime-prediction software is so often racially biased and skewed toward false-positives (it constantly amazes me how little the general populace are aware of the effect of false positives vs false negatives, and how little the media does to educate them), but balanced with positives examples of the effectiveness of algorithms.

This, as a popular science book, does an superb job of covering the main issues and philosophical and social questions of our increasing reliance on algorithms - from everything from shopping preferences to medicine, from security to self-driving cars an autopilot - leaving the reader with a solid base of knowledge and many questions about how we, as a society, use this powerful tool. I could easily have had the book be twice as long and deep (especially in the area of social media and news preferences, although perhaps that is too big a topic for a single chapter) but, for the general popular science audience, this is a brilliant overview with some very thoughtful insights.

One point which is an observation rather than a criticism is that, for the most part, I didn't 'hear' Dr Fry's voice in the writing. This isn't to say there was any problem with the writing or the pacing but, knowing her voice from her radio work - especially the marvellous Curios Cases of Rutherford and Fry that she presents with Adam Rutherford (which, for those not blessed with access to the BBC is available as a podcast and I HIGHLY recommend you seek it out) - the only place I heard Dr Fry was in the short conclusion. I understand she reads the audiobook, so I am intrigued how different it would be to listen to it.

Highly recommended. ...more

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