Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of the new and familiar is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not. Computers, like us, confront limited space and time, so computer scientists have been grappling with similar problems for decades. And the solutions they’ve found have much to teach us.

In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths show how algorithms developed for computers also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one’s inbox to peering into the future, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.

Table of Contents

1. Optimal Stopping: When to Stop Looking
2. Explore/Exploit: The Latest vs. the Greatest
3. Sorting: Making Order
4. Caching: Forget About It
5. Scheduling: First Things First
6. Bayes’s Rule: Predicting the Future
7. Overfitting: When to Think Less
8. Relaxation: Let It Slide
9. Randomness: When to Leave It to Chance
10. Networking: How We Connect
11. Game Theory: The Minds of Others