The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you’ve been making the same commute for a long time, you’ve probably settled on what seems like the best route. But “best” is a ...

When X's engineering team published the code that powers the platform's "for you" algorithm last month, Elon Musk said the move was a victory for transparency. "We know the algorithm is dumb and needs ...

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 ...

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. 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 ...

Superintelligence, roughly defined as an AI algorithm that can solve all problems better than people, will be a watershed for humanity and tech. Even the best human experts have trouble making ...

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 ...