Algorithms are everywhere! From Google searches to your Facebook feed. In order to appreciate how they can cause problems or can be more helpful, we first have to understand how they work.
They control a lot of what we see and experience. They are there to make it so we don’t have to scroll through endless posts to get the ones we like. Many algorithms are built to try to learn how to make our lives easier—giving us fewer choices to deal with, filtering posts we won’t like, and handing us recommendations from past purchases.
When it all goes right, we can be more informed consumers. For algorithms to serve humanity and the future well, we can’t passively float along without understanding how they shape our world.