HELLO WORLD

HOW TO BE HUMAN IN THE AGE OF THE MACHINE

HANNAH FRY Penguin, 240pp, £18.99

Hannah Fry, a mathematician, is ‘a passionate advocate for maths and technology, but keen that we don’t put too much faith in them’, Katy Guest wrote in the Guardian. Fry explains ‘with refreshing simplicity’ what AI, machine learning and complicated algorithms and data actually are. James Mcconnachie in the Sunday Times praised Fry for being ‘brilliantly clear on how algorithms work’.

‘What she has produced is a stylish, thoughtful and scrupulously fair-minded account of what the software that increasingly governs our world can and cannot do,’ Oliver Moody wrote in the Times. Yet, he complained, it is far too short, and ‘I would very much have liked to read more of Fry’s insights into the way algorithms work in politics, advertising and social media.’

We mustn’t be dismissive of algorithms, ‘intimidated by them and in awe of their capabilities’, Fry says. ‘Working together, human and AI machine can be the perfect team,’ Guest noted. But who gets to make the rules? Fry makes a convincing case for the urgent need for greater regulation and accountability.

‘And if we don’t understand it, those difficult questions will be answered by those who do – pharmaceutical companies, malign governments and the like,’ Guest warned. ‘It’s time to pull back the curtain on the algorithms that shape our lives. Because, as Fry says, “the future doesn’t just happen. We create it.” ’