thread for thinkpieces about TEH BIG BAD ALGORITHMS! ALGORITHMS! that don't seem to understand what an algorithm is

Let’s talk about algorithms.

Let’s talk about time and space.

Let’s talk about O(n^{2}) and O(n log(n)).

The Most Important Algorithms

After a long discussion with some of my RISC colleagues about what the 5 most important algorithms on the world are, we couldn't reach a consensus on this question. So I suggested to perform a little survey. The criterion for suggestions was that these algorithms should be widely used. Further we restrict ourselves to the fields of computer science and mathematics.

A* search algorithm
Beam Search
Binary search
Branch and bound
Buchberger's algorithm
Data compression
Diffie-Hellman key exchange
Dijkstra's algorithm
Discrete differentiation
Dynamic programming
Euclidean algorithm
Expectation-maximization algorithm (EM-Training)
Fast Fourier transform (FFT)
Gradient descent
Hashing
Heaps (heap sort)
Karatsuba multiplication
LLL algorithm
Maximum flow
Merge sort
Newton's method
Q-learning
Quadratic sieve
RANSAC
RSA
Schönhage-Strassen algorithm
Simplex algorithm
Singular value decomposition (SVD)
Solving a system of linear equations
Strukturtensor
Union-find
Viterbi algorithm

(from http://www.risc.jku.at/people/ckoutsch/stuff/e_algorithms.html)

This is a pretty good list and also reflects contemporary use!

I’d only remove strukturtensor and RANSAC. I don’t think there’s any that I’d add.

my first job out of college dijkstra's algorithm came up in the interview and I knew how it worked and I got the job so I think algorithms are good

if I had a dollar for every time someone wrote about how algorithms are evil, I'd have a huge list of dollars, but I could never sort it

RSA shortly to be toast thanks quantum computing

top 5 there I think are:
hashing
DH
FFT
merge sort
compression

my wildcard most important algorithm is the Knuth-Plass line-breaking algorithm

this is beyond my current level of knowledge but I approve of it

(I mean, not *all* of it is, but)

I mean I've never had to know precisely what a fourier transform is in my life but I know it's important for signal processing!

merge sort is cool as hell

Quick sort is mental

One of the authors of that Techcrunch idiocy is a compsci phd apparently?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPRA0W1kECg

quicksort is beautiful: quicksort(x < p) ++ p ++ quicksort(x >= p)

I like thread. And I really enjoy dunking on people writing about the coming gray goo or whatever. Excuse my rambling.

My analysis professor once described learning calculus, like reading Shakespeare or reading a foreign language, as something that makes everyone smarter and see the world in an entirely different way. I always loved that.

I think quicksort could be added to that list of subjects. Everything from the implementation to its analysis and even its peculiar history is complex and fascinating. I actually think a few of these would fit that too. Simplex, Dijkstra’s, or gradient descent would apply too.

If I would’ve posted this five years ago, everyone (myself included) would’ve said gradient descent should probably be removed, right? It’s incredible when ideas can be rediscovered or applied in different ways to transform entire fields. I pay my bills because of gradient descent! If it didn’t come back my research would look completely different.

I really don’t know anything about the two encryption algorithms Diffie-Hellman and RSA outside of the pop science descriptions.

I’m a little surprised by the lack of compiler-related algorithms like LALR or ideas like Chomsky hierarchy of formal grammars or even Church calculi. I first heard about the Kahan algorithm for SVD when I went to a Q&A with Chomsky and someone asked him to share a math trick he liked.

Silby, of the algorithms on the list I’ve implemented, FFT is the trickiest but possibly the most rewarding. It’s usefulness also extends outside of signal processing. I believe NLP, for example, now uses conceptually similar transformations for translation problems.

You should try it! (I bet the key exchange or RSA are trickier but, like I said, I don’t know much about them. Maybe I should try and learn something.)

https://www.fastcodesign.com/90174587/if-you-walk-breathe-or-talk-this-ai-probably-knows-who-you-are

that one's not so bad beyond the headline

this maybe isn't the thread for it but someone I follow on Twitter pointed out Angela Merkel being on the same Coachella tier with an android

What are the implications of AI? How can society interact responsibly with machines? And will our current political strategies help shape the future of intelligent systems? Do not miss out on #moralsandmachines in Berlin on June 27 & 28. Tickets -> https://t.co/s4l6W1aneD #wiwo pic.twitter.com/1GeIBLSKgl

— Léa Steinacker (@leasteinacker) June 7, 2018

Eye in the Sky: Real-time Drone Surveillance System (DSS) for Violent Individuals Identification using ScatterNet Hybrid Deep Learning Network

https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00746v1

😳

I'm starting to think any paper submitted should require an ethicist be one of the credited contributors before it's allowed to be published

see that doesn't belong in the thread either because it sounds like it actually is a bad algorithm

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/

I haven't read any of Harari's books, but I feel like the buzz around him is mostly positive so I was surprised to read stuff like this:

Imagine Anna Karenina taking out her smartphone and asking Siri whether she should stay married to Karenin or elope with the dashing Count Vronsky. Or imagine your favorite Shakespeare play with all the crucial decisions made by a Google algorithm. Hamlet and Macbeth would have much more comfortable lives, but what kind of lives would those be?

tbf this is nowhere near as dumb as the OP and he raises plenty of valid concerns, but I'm not sure techno-dystopianism is going to help us anymore than its opposite ever did

The insatiable demand for content and for novelty leads to every kind of inanity getting disseminated. The bar for punditry is set exceptionally low.

harari's 2014 book is compelling, his 2016 one a bit more of a slog

came here to post this

http://www.drb.ie/essays/the-hive-mind

the whole paragraph is a clusterfuck really

Democratic elections and free markets might cease to make sense.

algorithmic trading has existed for over three decades now

(and actually has caused very real and very big problems with the economy, but that isn't as exciting as robots stealing our free will)

only tangentially related to algorithm panic but the best thread on this subject you'll ever erad

(nsfw, probably, conceptually nsfw at least)

Ugh. I will be receiving this article for the foreseeable future, and while I love yelling at people for sending me dumb shit, I have things to do. In an effort to save time, I present

ONE DEGREE OF TRANSLATIONAL FREEDOM DOES NOT A BLOWJOB MAKE

A THREADhttps://t.co/ltHco7EGtU

— Kyle Machulis (@qDot) October 26, 2018

s/read

the links in this thread are like a greatest hits of shitty articles written about THE BIG BAD ALGORITHMS: that awful Racked piece, that terrible "pop music all sounds the same now!!!!!1!1!!!one" study, etc.

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/algorithms-music.php?fbclid=IwAR3gSkSWU0xFnlPK-AkF8BcQwryqYeVdMqB96p_phCE12hyIMuvBbe394Pc

Perhaps with an undertone of personal resentment, phrases like “algorithmic culture” and the “algorithm economy” have cropped up among critics to illustrate the way aesthetic and commercial motivations shift in this world of passive, automated discovery.

TRANSLATION: no one knows what the fuck an algorithm is, and people use "algorithms" as a scary technological bucket to hold their old anxieties about art vs. commerce, authenticity, rockism, and perhaps aging out of technology's target demographic, and I have no idea how people who program things for a living and also listen to music don't want to disintegrate on the regular

“By ‘algorithm culture,’ I meant the notion of art as something reduced to an integer and formula—a constant infinity loop of ‘recommended if you like…’ playlists,” Weiss says.

not to pick on him, I generally like his music writing, but this is kind of hilarious since an infinite loop is, by definition, not an algorithm, which is finite

lol and otm. Weiss might have been gesturing at some kind of cybernetic feedback loop system? Idk I think the discourse/hype around machine learning has made these discussions even worse.

I did think this bit was interesting:

Spotify employs natural-language processing (NLP) models in its recommendation algorithms, analyzing text from blogs, news articles, forums, and other sources to draw connections among different artists and songs, and to figure out what adjectives and moods people associate with these artists online.

Reminds me of people wondering why Conde Nast wanted to buy Reddit. Also that one poster who would freak out about Spotify all the time...maybe he knew

I wonder if they don't actually do that and just say they do b/c it sounds good

a constant infinity loop of ‘recommended if you like…’ playlists,”

If you like Bing Crosby Sings White Christmas you might like Bing Crosby Sings White Christmas... ???

re: the NLP stuff -- I would be skeptical of how useful it is, at least right now. my friend Emily (who actually does know what she is talking about) just posted about some of what's out there, which is... not fantastic: https://emshort.blog/2018/12/11/mailbag-ai-research-on-dialogue-and-story-generation-part-2/

(hey that's a cool person to be friends with)

yeah I wonder if silby isn't right about "NLP". OTOH textual sentiment analysis would be easy enough to run on those sources, though it's pretty dumb imo

oh sorry I see now your friend mentions SA

xp -- mostly through games stuff

I expected exhausting Bandersnatch takes but I did not expect this Jack Thompson twist:

https://qz.com/1513524/black-mirrors-bandersnatch-creates-the-future-not-predicts-it/

But what if instead of logging how many times you watched Love Actually this holiday season, it’s remembering whether you opted to kill your father in cold blood, or save him? What could Netflix do with that highly sensitive emotional information? ... The third concern is the most Black Mirror of them all. It’s not inconceivable to imagine that if the government got a hold of your data, it could think you’re someone worthy of future surveillance. Studies from the Oxford Internet Institute show that there is little evidence to say that playing violent video games lead to violent real-life behavior. However, there are still politicians that peddle this narrative. Could Netflix data be used to identify future terrorists or restrict your access to airports?

excuse me sir, we have here a file from a quote unquote "video game" called The Sims detailing how you trapped your quote unquote "Sims" in a house and set it on fire. sorry, but you have to leave the country now.

something that is actually correct: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/facebook-doesnt-need-to-fool-you.html

this in particular should be carved into a goddamn mountain:

In the same way that the breathtaking scope of contemporary surveillance and data-extraction processes makes conspiracy theories about astroturfed memes and bugged smartphones seem almost pathetic in comparison, it also reveals how little our own choices are able to control the flow of our data, and how little our knowledge really matters. I might be aware that photos of myself in 2009 could be misused, and choose not to participate in that meme. But simply by living a fairly regular life on and offline — by clicking on links and writing posts; by opening Instagram and scrolling through it, hovering over some photos and flicking past others; by using credit cards at chain stores; by letting photographs of myself be taken and uploaded to the internet — I’m generating data that’s probably more valuable to the companies involved than those photographs would be. There’s something tragic about the fact that the purely recreational activity of participating in a meme is the subject of conspiratorial paranoia, while the multitude of chore-like activities we do daily, from which data is also being extracted for hoarding or sale, go mostly ignored.

"Can we continue to use your data to tailor ads for you?" Popup irony...

i got stuck at a particular sentence in a blog post recently until i realized that they wrote 'logarithm' in place of 'algorithm'

I expected this bump to be about the aoc thing (which I still need to get through like four levels of Discourse telephone to figure out who's misrepresenting whom and by how much)

i'm not following things too closely but steve bellovin seems cogent

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/yes-algorithms-can-be-biased-heres-why/

yeah, once I actually read her comments rather than the crust of Discourse coating them, they were far more reasonable than anything in this thread

this one truly has it all https://medium.com/futuresin/why-algorithms-and-artificial-intelligence-are-a-threat-to-democracy-bd4d6b1114af

(I realize picking on something by a "Blockchain Mark Consultant, tech Futurist, prolific writer" is cheating, but it was in my inbox)

IBM must be grateful there's an I in Mafia

ha, I was going to ask, is this actually getting traction? The introduction is disqualifying on its own

the algorithms haven't had a great week in the UK

https://www.wired.com/story/an-algorithm-determined-uk-students-grades-chaos-ensued/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/08/13/algorithm-has-ruined-a-level-results-thousands-students/
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/a-level-exam-grades-faulty-algorithm-a4526646.html

Q: Who is to blame for the government's mishandling of a situation everyone saw coming six months ago?
A: The algorithms!

FWIW I think this scandal is a bit different as most people seem to correctly recognise that the algorithm is being used as a clumsy shield by the unforgivable people who are actually in charge of this shitstorm.

I'm going to lose my fucking mind:

Algorithms, by contrast, change as human behavior changes. They resemble not the cars or coal mines we have regulated in the past, but something more like the bacteria in our intestines, living organisms that interact with us. In one experiment, for example, Matias observed that when users on Reddit worked together to promote news from reliable sources, the Reddit algorithm itself began to prioritize higher-quality content.

this is the equivalent of saying "when people started adding 2+4 instead of 2+2, the algorithm produced 6 instead of 4! It's changing!" (or, in this case: "when people started to promote more high-quality content, the prioritize-stuff-people-promote algorithm started to prioritize more high-quality content! It's changing!")

i think my brain needs a new algorithm

Recipes, by contrast, change as human behavior changes. The recipe called for chicken so the first time I made it, I used a can of dog food. The second time I used fresh chicken, resulting in higher-quality food.

now uk government policy

The minister in charge of the new law regulating behaviour online has told social media bosses to “remove your harmful algorithms today” - or face swift criminal prosecution https://t.co/BkxI3Hwcr8

— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 4, 2021

Is that Secretary Aimless? ;)

She said of the social media companies: "They know what they're doing wrong."

Her junior minister, Chris Philp, added: "The platforms have no regard or scant regard for protecting people… it is completely unacceptable and irresponsible."

Ms Dorries, who was unexpectedly promoted to culture secretary by Boris Johnson in last month's reshuffle, also confirmed that the bill would use an expansive definition of online harm, up to and including "psychological harm" caused by abuse.

The government has found the exact nature of "online harm" difficult to pin down and critics - including tech company lobbyists - argue that it has still not been properly defined in the legislation.

The government is being urged to use its upcoming Online Safety Bill to give police and prosecutors more powers.

Ms Dorries said she believed the definition was "quite clear", saying: "If it causes physical or psychological injury then, of course, it wouldn't be allowed."

However, she said that the concept of "societal harm", which some have called on to be included in the bill, was "too complex" to put into law.

my god

Omg they're doing it out in the open!!

https://www.algoriddim.com/

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22775580/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-judge-apple-ai-pinch-to-zoom-footage-manipulation-claim

What the fucking fuck. Fuck this judge.

judge is 75. judge doesn't do email

“iPads, which are made by Apple, have artificial intelligence in them that allow things to be viewed through three-dimensions and logarithms,” the defense insisted. “It uses artificial intelligence, or their logarithms, to create what they believe is happening. So this isn’t actually enhanced video, this is Apple’s iPad programming creating what it thinks is there, not what necessarily is there,” they added.

...Judge Schroeder argued that it was the prosecution — not the defense — that had the burden of proving that Apple doesn’t use artificial intelligence to manipulate footage, demanding that they provide an expert to testify, and didn’t allow the prosecution to adjourn to find that expert before bringing Rittenhouse up for cross-examination. The judge suggested that prosecutors could somehow find that expert in 20 minutes while they took a brief recess. “Maybe you can get someone to testify on this within minutes, I don’t know,” said the judge. No such expert was there by the time the trial resumed.

someone, find an expert on logarithms!!

i think i could be a pioneering lawyer, now that i know this kind of stuff works!

your honor, i'm afraid that all of the video and audio exhibits presented by the prosecution must be thrown out. you see, they don't want you to know all of the video and audio has been manipulated. it is not the original sound and images that a witness would have perceived in real life. these sounds and images were captured by a device - an iPhone, made by a company called Apple - and then stored on their digital platform. in the process, apple uses proprietary "logarithms" to convert these files for storage.

Judge Larry Fontaine: I am so sick of these companies and their logarithms trying to fool us. Prosecution, unless you can produce a logarithm expert while I go take a 20-minute three-flusher, I will be forced to throw out all evidence in this trial. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a crossword to do

Why does the YouTube Music algorithim think I want to hear "Take My Breathe Away" every goddam day

if they mean The Knife single then because it's a great single