Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths.
Algorithms to Live By: the computer science of human decisions.
Collins. 2016
rating : 2 : great stuff
review : 23 May 2021
Algorithms to Live By helps to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind. Asking us how to have better hunches, when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices or how best to connect with others – it shows how our computers’ methods have much to teach us. From finding your spouse to finding a parking spot, and from organizing your inbox to understanding the workings of memory – where you have a dilemma, they have a rule. In this eye-opening book each fascinating algorithm turns the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.
This book does several things very well indeed. It introduces a broad range of Computer Science’s fundamental algorithms, explaining them simply and clearly. It shows how we might apply these algorithms in our everyday lives, to help us make more efficient and effective decisions. And it shows that even when we have the provably best means of making a decision, it might not always (or even very often) work.
It covers approaches to searching, and when to stop looking for improvements over what you already have. It discuses sorting, and tradeoffs between time spent keeping things in order, and time spent finding them later. It covers scheduling, and how the best order to do things in depends very much on what you are trying to optimise. It finishes with game theory, explaining why some situations lead to poor outcomes for all, and how understanding this can help you know how to change the situation to get better outcomes. And it does all this, and more, with a light touch that makes it very readable.