Brian Christian - Algorithms to Live By - The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Copyright Copyright Dedication Introduction Algorithms to Live By 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 Conclusion Computational Kindness Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments Also by Brian Christian About the Authors About the Publisher

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company, LLC in 2016

Copyright © 2016 by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover design by Jonathan Pelham

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007547999

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007547982

Version: 2018-09-27

Dedication Dedication Introduction Algorithms to Live By 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 Conclusion Computational Kindness Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments Also by Brian Christian About the Authors About the Publisher

For our families

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Copyright Dedication Introduction Algorithms to Live By 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 Conclusion Computational Kindness Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments Also by Brian Christian About the Authors About the Publisher William Collins An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016 First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company, LLC in 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Cover design by Jonathan Pelham All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007547999 Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007547982 Version: 2018-09-27

Dedication Dedication Dedication Introduction Algorithms to Live By 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 Conclusion Computational Kindness Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments Also by Brian Christian About the Authors About the Publisher For our families

Introduction

Algorithms to Live By

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

Conclusion

Computational Kindness

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Also by Brian Christian

About the Authors

About the Publisher

Introduction

Algorithms to Live By

Imagine you’re searching for an apartment in San Francisco—arguably the most harrowing American city in which to do so. The booming tech sector and tight zoning laws limiting new construction have conspired to make the city just as expensive as New York, and by many accounts more competitive. New listings go up and come down within minutes, open houses are mobbed, and often the keys end up in the hands of whoever can physically foist a deposit check on the landlord first.

Such a savage market leaves little room for the kind of fact-finding and deliberation that is theoretically supposed to characterize the doings of the rational consumer. Unlike, say, a mall patron or an online shopper, who can compare options before making a decision, the would-be San Franciscan has to decide instantly either way: you can take the apartment you are currently looking at, forsaking all others, or you can walk away, never to return.

Let’s assume for a moment, for the sake of simplicity, that you care only about maximizing your chance of getting the very best apartment available. Your goal is reducing the twin, Scylla-and-Charybdis regrets of the “one that got away” and the “stone left unturned” to the absolute minimum. You run into a dilemma right off the bat: How are you to know that an apartment is indeed the best unless you have a baseline to judge it by? And how are you to establish that baseline unless you look at (and lose) a number of apartments? The more information you gather, the better you’ll know the right opportunity when you see it—but the more likely you are to have already passed it by.

So what do you do? How do you make an informed decision when the very act of informing it jeopardizes the outcome? It’s a cruel situation, bordering on paradox.

When presented with this kind of problem, most people will intuitively say something to the effect that it requires some sort of balance between looking and leaping—that you must look at enough apartments to establish a standard, then take whatever satisfies the standard you’ve established. This notion of balance is, in fact, precisely correct. What most people don’t say with any certainty is what that balance is. Fortunately, there’s an answer.