In algorithms, as in life, negativity can be a drag. Consider the problem of finding the shortest path between two points on a graph — a network of nodes connected by links, or edges. Often, these ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to solve a tricky problem, it often helps to get organized. You might, for example, break the problem into pieces and tackle ...

For better accountability, we should shift the focus from the design of these systems to their impact. Describing a decision-making system as an “algorithm” is often a way to deflect accountability ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Computer scientists often deal with abstract problems that are hard to comprehend, but an exciting new algorithm matters to anyone who ...

An exclusive excerpt from Every Screen On The Planet reveals how the social media app’s powerful recommendation engine was shaped by a bunch of ordinary, twentysomething curators—including a guy named ...

As repeatedly promised by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has opened a portion of its source code to public inspection, including the algorithm it uses to recommend tweets in users’ timelines. On ...

It’s the most successful video app in the world. Our columnist has obtained an internal company document that offers a new level of detail about how the algorithm works. By Ben Smith There are four ...