ALGORITHMS TO LIVE BY

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Nonfiction

Thinking like humans

ALGORITHMS TO LIVE BY
The Computer Science of Human Decisions
By Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
368 pp. Picador

Reviewed by Sue Ellis

An algorithm is a process, a series of logical steps taken to solve a problem, and is typically used to program computers to “think” like humans. In Brian Christian’s and Tom Griffiths’ new book, Algorithms to Live By, they explain eleven algorithms and the applications where they have been useful, and then suggest ways in which the same problem-solving process might help us in our daily lives.

A few of the problems covered in the book are: prioritizing one’s way through a list of tasks, how to filter a list of job applicants and make the smartest pick, how to make better use of your memory and understand its limitations, and how to organize a closet. The suggestions are smart, thoroughly explained, and personable. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek excerpt about the roommate of Danny Hillis, inventor of the famous Connection Machine parallel supercomputer:
The roommate pulled a sock out of the clean laundry hamper. Next he pulled another sock out at random. If it didn’t match the first one, he tossed it back in. Then he continued this process, pulling out socks one by one and tossing them back until he found a match for the first. 
With just ten different pairs of socks, following this method will take on average 19 pulls merely to complete the first pair, and 17 more pulls to complete the second. In total, the roommate can expect to go fishing in the hamper 110 times just to pair 20 socks. 
It was enough to make any budding computer scientist request a room transfer. 

The algorithm needed to bring order to this particular brand of chaos? Sorting—which the authors reveal is really the basis for computer functions. There was never mention of a suggestion to spare the roommate hours of wasted time, but there was an amusing paragraph that followed:
“Socks confound me!” confessed legendary cryptographer and Turing Award-winning computer scientist Ron Rivest to the two of us when we brought up the topic. 
He was wearing sandals at he time.
Sock sorting and a good chuckle aside, the intelligent and relaxed way the material is presented makes all the difference for readers of this helpful look at science and its practical applications. While algorithms are genius, they’re often not as complicated as one might expect, at least not after the authors define each of them and then apply them to problems we face in our everyday lives. And they seem somehow more approachable because they’re not foolproof, which is probably what endears them to the people who employ them. It must be nice, as an engineer or scientist, to be given an assignment whose outcome will be considered a success when it’s largely, but not entirely effective. A user of algorithms only hopes to have the odds on his side—a realistic expectation when he’s done his homework. Life and computer programs are, after all, still a crapshoot.

It’s not for everyone, but some might be comforted by our compulsion to use math to the nth degree. It has solved some huge problems through the centuries and whittled down the complexity of tasks by utilizing reason and creativity. I’d recommend this book to anyone.
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