Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms

Shortlisted for the 2018 Royal Society Investment Science Book Prize

A look inside the algorithms that are shaping our lives and the dilemmas they bring with them.

If you were accused of a crime, who would you rather decide your sentence―a mathematically consistent algorithm incapable of empathy or a compassionate human judge prone to bias and error? What if you want to buy a driverless car and must choose between one programmed to save as many lives as possible and another that prioritizes the lives of its own passengers? And would you agree to share your family’s full medical history if you were told that it would help researchers find a cure for cancer?

These are just some of the dilemmas that we are beginning to face as we approach the age of the algorithm, when it feels as if the machines reign supreme. Already, these lines of code are telling us what to watch, where to go, whom to date, and even whom to send to jail. But as we rely on algorithms to automate big, important decisions―in crime, justice, healthcare, transportation, and money―they raise questions about what we want our world to look like. What matters most: Helping doctors with diagnosis or preserving privacy? Protecting victims of crime or preventing innocent people being falsely accused?

Hello World takes us on a tour through the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us on a daily basis. Mathematician Hannah Fry reveals their inner workings, showing us how algorithms are written and implemented, and demonstrates the ways in which human bias can literally be written into the code. By weaving in relatable, real world stories with accessible explanations of the underlying mathematics that power algorithms, Hello World helps us to determine their power, expose their limitations, and examine whether they really are improvement on the human systems they replace.

入圍2018年皇家學會投資科學書獎。

深入探索塑造我們生活的演算法及其帶來的困境。

如果你被指控犯罪，你寧願由一個無法同情的數學一致的演算法來決定你的刑罰，還是由一個容易受到偏見和錯誤的富有同情心的人類法官來決定？如果你想買一輛無人駕駛汽車，必須在一個儘可能拯救更多生命的程式和一個優先考慮自己乘客生命的程式之間做出選擇，你會選擇哪一個？如果告訴你分享你家庭的完整病歷可以幫助研究人員找到治癒癌症的方法，你會同意嗎？

這些只是我們在進入演算法時代時開始面臨的困境之一，感覺機器主宰一切。這些程式碼已經告訴我們要看什麼、去哪裡、和誰約會，甚至是誰該入獄。但是當我們依賴演算法來自動化重大重要的決策時（在犯罪、司法、醫療保健、交通和金融領域），它們引發了關於我們希望世界是什麼樣子的問題。什麼最重要：幫助醫生診斷還是保護隱私？保護犯罪受害者還是防止無辜人被冤枉指控？

《Hello World》帶領我們遊覽我們日常生活中所環繞的演算法的好、壞和極其醜陋的一面。數學家漢娜·弗萊揭示了它們的內部運作，向我們展示了演算法的撰寫和實施方式，並展示了人類偏見如何被寫入程式碼中。通過結合可關聯的現實世界故事和易於理解的基礎數學解釋，Hello World幫助我們確定演算法的力量，揭示它們的局限性，並檢視它們是否真的是取代人類系統的改進。