The Formula_How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems... and Create More

by Luke Dormehl

  52 calegaladvocates.org/news/article.132896-COMPUTER_GLITCH_LEAVES_CALIFORNIAS_NEEDIEST_MEDICARE_RECIPIENTS_WITHOUT_BEN.

  53 sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/medicare-clients-sue-state-over-computer-flub/Content?oid=2155092.

  54 Garvey, Meghan. “Net to Snag Deadbeats Also Snares Innocent.” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1998. articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/12/local/me-38538.

  55 United States Government Accountability Office. “Terrorist Watch List Screening: Efforts to Help Reduce Adverse Effects on the Public—Report to Congressional Requesters.” 2006.

  56 Schneier, Bruce. “Why Data Mining Won’t Stop Terror.” Wired, March 9, 2006. wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/03/70357.

  57 Graham, S. (2005) “Software-Sorted Geographies,” Progress in Human Geography.

  58 Sweeney, Latanya. “Google Ads, Black Names and White Names, Racial Discrimination, and Click Advertising.” ACM Queue, vol. 11, no. 3, March 2013. queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2460278.

  59 Ananny, Mike. “The Curious Connection Between Apps for Gay Men and Sex Offenders.” The Atlantic, April 14, 2011. theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/the-curious-connection-between-apps-for-gay-men-and-sex-offenders/237340/.

  60 Citron, Danielle. “Technological Due Process.” Washington University Law Review, vol. 85, 2007.

  61 Citron, Danielle. “Technological Due Process” (Luncheon Video/Audio). January 15, 2008. cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2008/01/citron.

  62 Posner, Richard. “The Role of the Judge in the Twenty-First Century.” Boston University Law Review, vol. 86, 2006.

  63 Radin, Max. “The Theory of Judicial Decision: Or How Judges Think.” 1925.

  64 Hutcheson Jr., Joseph C. “The Judgment Intuitive: The Function of the ‘Hunch’ in Judicial Decision.” 1929.

  65 Ruger, Theodore, Pauline Kim, Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn. “The Supreme Court Forecasting Project: Legal and Political Science Approaches to Predicting Supreme Court Decisionmaking.” Columbia Law Review, vol. 104, no. 4, May 2004.

  66 Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell. “The Path of the Law.” 1897.

  Chapter 4: The Machine That Made Art

  1 Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting (New York: Warner Books, 1983).

  2 Medavoy, Mike, and Josh Young. You’re Only as Good as Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot (New York: Pocket Books, 2002).

  3 Johnston, Rich. “Review: Avatar—The Most Expensive American Film Ever . . . and Possibly the Most Anti-American One Too.” Bleeding Cool, December 11, 2009. bleedingcool.com/2009/12/11/review-avatar-the-most-expensive-american-film-ever-and-the-most-anti-american-one-too/.

  4 McBride, Joseph. Steven Spielberg: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997).

  5 An exchange between Spielberg and his dad, remembered by Arnold Spielberg and recorded in Joseph McBride’s acclaimed biography of the director, went like this: “I said, ‘Steve, you’ve gotta study math.’ He said, ‘I don’t like it.’ He’d ask me to do his chemistry for him. And he would never even do the damn chemistry lab, he would just come home and say, ‘Dad, I’ve gotta prepare this experiment.’ I’d say, ‘You don’t have any data there. How am I supposed to tell you what you’ve done?’ So I’d try to reconstruct the experiment for him, I’d come down with some answers. He’d come back [from school] and say, ‘Jesus, Dad, you flunked!’”

  6 Keegan, Rebecca. “The Legend of Will Smith.” Time, November 29, 2007. content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1689234,00.html.

  7 Eells, Josh. “Jennifer Lawrence: America’s Kick-Ass Sweetheart.” Rolling Stone, April 12, 2012. rollingstone.com/movies/news/cover-story-excerpt-jennifer-lawrence-20120328.

  8 Whatever it proves, this moment has proven a divisive one among critics. While some love it, others view it as the weakest moment of the film. In an article for the New Republic, critic David Thompson referred to it as “appalling.” Thompson, David. “Schindler’s Girl in the Red Coat Speaks Out.” New Republic, March 7, 2013. newrepublic.com/article/112598/schindlers-girl-red-coat-speaks-out.

  9 Salganik, Matthew, Peter Dodds and Duncan Watts. “Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market.” Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 4, December 2008. princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.pdf.

  10 Huntzicker, William. The Popular Press, 1833–1865 (Westport, Conn.; London: Greenwood Press, 1999).

  11 Rutsky, R. L. High Techneˉ: Art and Technology from the Machine Aesthetic to the Post-human (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

  12 Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002).

  13 For anyone interested, the formula he came up with was S(pi + Pii + Piii . . . P) Y = T, where S equals the sum of the principles (P), Y equals intuition, and T equals artistic creation.

  14 Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (London: Penguin, 2008).

  15 Clark, Liat. “2D Photos Translated into 3D-Printed Translucent Artworks.” Wired, May 23, 2013. wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/23/3d-printed-touch-photos.

  16 Kim, Seung-Chan, Ali Israr, and Ivan Poupyrev. “Tactile Rendering of 3D Features on Touch Surfaces.” Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology—UIST 2013 (2013): 531–38. disneyresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/uist-2013-final.pdf.

  17 Poupyrev, Ivan. “Researchers Develop Algorithm for Rendering 3-D Tactile Features on Touch Surfaces.” October 7, 2013. phys.org/news/2013-10-algorithm-d-tactile-features-surfaces.html.

  18 The term “info-aesthetics” was first coined in the 1950s by Max Bense, a German philosopher with a particular interest in art, technology and science.

  19 Bishop, Todd. “Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold Have Another Wild Idea: Automatically Generating Video from Text.” Geekwire, August 13, 2013. geekwire.com/2013/gates-myhrvold-crazy-idea-autogenerating-video-text/.

  20 Ramsay, Stephen. Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011).

  21 Bowden, B. V. Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines (New York; London: Pitman, 1953).

  22 Shamir, Lior, and Jane Tarakhovsky. “Computer Analysis of Art.” Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, vol. 5, no. 2, July 2012.

  23 Shamir, Lior. “Computer Analysis Reveals Similarities between the Artistic Styles of Van Gogh and Pollock.” Leonardo, vol. 45, no. 2, April 2012.

  24 “Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock: Changing What Art Is.” www3.dmagazine.com/events/details/Vincent-Van-Gogh-and-Jackson-Pollock-Changing-What-Art-Is.

  25 Dormehl, Luke. “Should We Teach Literature Students How to Analyze Texts Algorithmically?” Fast Company, September 3, 2013. fastcolabs.com/3016699/should-we-teach-literature-students-how-to-analyze-texts-algorithmically.

  26 Leonard, Andrew. “How Netflix Is Turning Viewers into Puppets.” Salon, February 1, 2013. salon.com/2013/02/01/how_netflix_is_turning_viewers_into_puppets/.

  27 Bianco, Robert. “House of Cards Is All Aces.” USA Today, February 1, 2013. usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2013/01/31/bianco-review-house-of-cards/1880835/.

  28 Blakely, Rhys. “Emmy Awards Brings the Computer Algorithm to Hollywood.” Times, September 20, 2013. thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/tv-radio/article3874137.ece.

  29 nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/media/tv-foresees-its-future-netflix-is-there.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

  30 Levy, Steven. “In Conversation with Jeff Bezos: CEO of the Internet.” Wired, December 12, 2011. wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/01/features/ceo-of-the-internet/page/2.

  31 Dormehl, Luke. “Can Alternate Endings Save the Hollywood Blockbuster?” Fast Company, July 30, 2013. fastcolabs.com/3015037/open-company/can-alternate-end
ings-save-the-hollywood-blockbuster.

  32 This idea is backed up by Wired editor Chris Anderson’s concept of the “98 Percent Rule,” described in his 2006 book The Long Tail. In his discussion of how technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches, Anderson argues that niche products are now within reach economically thanks to digital distribution, and when aggregated can still make up a significant market—as Amazon’s business model has shown.

  33 Warman, Matt. “Xbox One Will Track Viewers’ TV Habits and Reward Them for Watching Ads.” Telegraph, May 29, 2013. telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/Xbox/10087148/Xbox-One-will-track-viewers-TV-habits-and-reward-them-for-watching-ads.html.

  34 Lohr, Steve. “Computers That See You and Keep Watch Over You.” New York Times, January 1, 2011. nytimes.com/2011/01/02/science/02see.html?pagewanted=all.

  35 Small, David. “Rethinking the Book,” in Graphic Design & Reading (New York: Allworth Press, 2000).

  36 There have been several creative attempts to retain the linearity of electronic books using a variety of innovative encryption algorithms. In 1992, cyberpunk author William Gibson created an “electronic novel” called Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), which was mailed to readers on a three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk. Once opened, the book’s text would be displayed for a single time—gradually disappearing as the user scrolled down the computer screen.

  37 DeRose, Steven. “Structured Information: Navigation, Access and Control.” April 1995. sunsite.berkeley.edu/FindingAids/EAD/derose.html.

  38 The Top Grossing Film of All Time, 1 × 1, 2000. http://salavon.com/work/TopGrossingFilmAllTime/.

  39 Visit hint.fmw/wind/ to see the wind map in action.

  40 bewitched.com/windmap.html.

  41 Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (New York: Current, 2013).

  42 Zittrain, Jonathan. “How Amazon Kindled the Bookburners’ Flames.” Wired, July 2013. wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/07/ideas-bank/how-amazon-kindled-the-bookburners-flames.

  43 Lanier, Jaron. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).

  44 Hume, David, and John Lenz. Of the Standard of Taste, and Other Essays. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965).

  45 Coughlan, Alexandra. “Reviewed: Sensing Memory Festival at the University of Plymouth.” New Statesman, February 21, 2013. newstatesman.com/culture/music-and-performance/2013/02/aural-pill-popping.

  46 Morozov, Evgeny. To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems That Don’t Exist (London: Allen Lane, 2013).

  47 Levy, David. Robots Unlimited: Life in a Virtual Age (Wellesley, UK: A. K. Peters, 2006).

  48 Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972).

  49 Bell, Philip. “Iamus, Classical Music’s Computer Composer, Live from Malaga.” Guardian, July 1, 2012. theguardian.com/music/2012/jul/01/iamus-computer-composes-classical-music.

  50 Ecker, David. “Of Music and Men.” Columbia Spectator, January 25, 2013. columbiaspectator.com/2013/01/25/music-and-men.

  Conclusion: Predicting the Future

  1 Meehl, Paul. Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954).

  2 Goode, Erica. “Paul Meehl, 83, An Example for Leaders of Psychotherapy, Dies.” New York Times, February 19, 2003. nytimes.com/2003/02/19/obituaries/19MEEH.html.

  3 “Automated Computer Algorithms Now Carry Out 70% of Trades on U.S. Stock Market.” Colors, no. 85, December 3, 2012. colorsmagazine.com/stories/magazine/85/story/algorithms.

  4 Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (New York: Little, Brown, 2005).

  5 MacCormick, John. Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today’s Computers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012).

  6 Levy, Frank, and Richard Murnane. The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market (New York: Russell Sage Foundation; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004).

  7 Stone, Brad. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (New York: Little, Brown, 2013).

  8 Bellos, David. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything (New York: Faber and Faber, 2011).

  9 Lanier, Jaron. Who Owns the Future? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013).

  10 jay.law.ou.edu/faculty/Jmaute/Lawyering_21st_Century/Spring%202012%20files/TheFutureofLaw_DarkClouds.pdf.

  11 Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy (Lexington, Mass.: Digital Frontier Press, 2012).

  12 Levitt, Theodore. Marketing Myopia (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008).

  13 Gorz, André. Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post-Industrial Socialism (London: Pluto Press, 1982).

  Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995).

  14 Evans, Christopher. The Mighty Micro (Sevenoaks, UK: Coronet, 1980).

  15 Keim, Brandon. “Nanosecond Trading Could Make Markets Go Haywire.” Wired, February 16, 2012. wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/high-speed-trading/.

  16 bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18427851.

  17 Fallows, Deborah. Search Engine Users, January 23, 2005. Pew Research Center and American Life Project, pewinternet.org.

  18 Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011).

  19 MacCormick, John. Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today’s Computers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012).

  20 Anderson, Chris. “The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete.” Wired, June 23, 2008. wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory.

  21 Doctorow, Cary. “How an Algorithm Came Up with Amazon’s ‘Keep Calm and Rape a Lot’ T-Shirt.” BoingBoing, March 2, 2013. boingboing.net/2013/03/02/how-an-algorithm-came-up-with.html.

  22 “Google Sued over Bettina Wulff Search Results.” BBC, September 10, 2012. bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19542938.

  23 “Life Through Google’s Eyes: Do You Fit Your Search Engine Age Profile?” Huffington Post UK, January 5, 2013. huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/01/life-through-googles-eyes-video-avatar_n_3190281.html.

  24 “The Google Autocomplete Guide to Politicians.” Huffington Post UK, April 3, 2013. huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/03/google-autocomplete-politicians_n_3007248.html.

  25 Morozov, Evgeny. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).

  Tung, Liam. “Google Ordered to Muzzle Defamatory Autocompletes by German Court.” ZDNet, May 15, 2013. zdnet.com/google-ordered-to-muzzle-defamatory-autocompletes-by-german-court-7000015406/.

  26 Tuchman, Gaye. “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 77, no. 4, January 1972. https://umdrive.memphis.edu/cbrown14/public/Mass%20Comm%20Theory/Week%2012%20Encoding/Tuchman%201972.pdf.

  27 Mayer, Marissa. “Google I/O ’08 Keynote Address.” June 5, 2008.

  28 Slavin, Kevin. “How Algorithms Shape Our World.” TED Talk, 2011. youtube.com/watch?v=ENWVRcMGDoU.

  Thomas, W. I., and D. S. Thomas. The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs (New York: Knopf, 1928).

  29 “United Airlines Stock Decline & the Power of Google.” OneUpWeb. oneupweb.com/blog/united_airlines/.

  30 Meiklejohn, Alexander. Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People (New York: Harper, 1960).

  31 Resende, Patricia. “YouTube Clamps Down on Sexual Conte
nt.” NewsFactor, December 3, 2008. newsfactor.com/news/YouTube-Gets-Tough-on-Sleaze/story.xhtml?story_id=0030009XC5M6.

  32 Gillespie, Tarleton. “The Relevance of Algorithms,” in Media Technologies: Paths Forward in Social Research (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2013).

  33 Tancer, Bill. Click: What We Do Online and Why It Matters (London: HarperCollins, 2009).

  34 Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).

  35 truthteller.washingtonpost.com/about/.

  Raby, Mark. “Truth Teller Algorithm Can Fact-Check Politicians in Real Time.” Geek, January 30, 2013. geek.com/articles/news/truth-teller-can-fact-check-politicians-in-real-time-20130130/.

  36 Citron, Danielle. “Technological Due Process.” Washington University Law Review, vol. 85, 2007.

  37 Claburn, Thomas. “How Google Flu Trends Blew It.” InformationWeek, October 25, 2013. informationweek.com/applications/how-google-flu-trends-blew-it/d/d-id/1112081?

  38 Lanier, Jaron. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).

  Badiou, Alain. In Praise of Love (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2012).

  39 Ferguson, Andrew. “Predictive Policing and Reasonable Suspicion,” May 2, 2012. law.emory.edu/fileadmin/journals/elj/62/62.2/Ferguson.pdf.

  40 Lovejoy, Ben. “Apple Offers Free 1-Hour Computer Science Workshops for Kids & Teens.” 9to5Mac, December 9, 2013. 9to5mac.com/2013/12/09/apple-oofers-free-1-hour-computer-science-workshops-for-kids-teens/.

  Grothaus, Michael. “Does the ‘Lolita Bot’ Help Catch Online Predators or Create More of Them?” Fast Company, July 16, 2013. fastcolabs.com/3013217/the-forerunners-of-future-sexbots-now.

  41 Žižek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times (London; New York: Verso, 2010).

  Index

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