How Algorithms Solve all our Problems … and Create More

The Formula

The story of how a mathematical concept came to shape all of our lives

A persuasive, timely interrogation of one of our age's most dangerous assumptions: that information is the same as understanding, and that everything which counts can be counted.

Tom Chatfield, author of Netymology and How to Thrive in the Digital Age

This is exactly the type of book we need to be reading as society considers the computerized control of nearly all the systems that affect our lives.

A smart and thoughtful overview of algorithms and how they affect our daily lives.

John P. Kelley, President and CEO of Blackstone Discovery

Luke Dormehl is a journalist and filmmaker and author of The Apple Revolution: The Real Story of how Steve Jobs and The Crazy Ones Took Over the World. His writing has appeared in publications including The Chap, SFX and Fighting Spirit. He has conducted numerous interviews with people for both print and television, including, Sir Ian McKellen and Alain de Botton. Dormehl has directed several documentary films, most recently The Pantomime (2009), a look at behind-the-scenes turmoil in a small village panto, which was narrated by the actor Simon Callow.

What if everything in life could be reduced to a simple formula? What if numbers were able to tell us which partners we were best matched with – not just in terms of attractiveness, but for a long-term committed marriage? Or if they could say which films would be the biggest hits at the box office, and what changes could be made to those films to make them even more successful? Or even who out of us is likely to commit certain crimes, and when? This may sound like the world of science-fiction, but in fact it is just the tip of the iceberg in a world that is increasingly ruled by complex algorithms and neural networks. 
 
In The Formula, Luke Dormehl takes you inside the world of numbers, asking how we came to believe in the all-conquering power of algorithms; introducing the mathematicians, artificial intelligence experts and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are shaping this brave new world, and ultimately asking how we survive in an era where numbers can sometimes seem to create as many problems as they solve.

Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World

The Apple Revolution

The story behind the rise of the world's largest technology company

Luke Dormehl is a journalist, author and filmmaker. His writing has appeared in publications including The Chap, SFX and Fighting Spirit. He has conducted numerous interviews with people for both print and television, including, Sir Ian McKellen and Alain de Botton. Dormehl has directed several documentary films, most recently The Pantomime (2009), a look at behind-the-scenes turmoil in a small village panto, which was narrated by the actor Simon Callow.

On 26 May, 2010 Apple Inc. passed Microsoft in valuation as the world's largest technology company. Its consumer electronic products - ranging from computers to mobile phones to portable media devices, not to mention its iTunes, iBook and App Store - have influenced nearly every facet of our lives, and it shows no sign of slowing down. But how did Apple - a company set up in the back room of a house by two friends, and one that always marketed itself as the underdog - become the marketplace leader (and the world's second largest company overall), and is it a good thing to have one company hold so much power? 
 
In The Apple Revolution Luke Dormehl shares the inside story of how Apple Inc. came to be; from the formation of the company's philosophies and user-friendly ethos, to the "iPod moment" and global domination, leaving you with a deep understanding of how it was created, why it has flourished, and where it might be going next.

Luke Dormehl

The inside story of Artificial Intelligence and our race to build the future

2016 marks the 60-year anniversary of the phrase ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and in this fascinating book, Luke Dormehl charts the weird and wonderful journey of one of mankind’s greatest projects, the creation of Thinking Machines. 
 
This is a story of how what it means to be human in the face of accelerating machine intelligence. It’s about trying to make computers that are smarter than we are, and what happens when it goes wrong. About what creativity means when all knowledge is data that can be stored on microchips. Or about what happens when machines can learn from their mistakes much faster than humans can. And above all, it’s about the dazzling future around the corner, how our lives might just change forever, and whether you and I aren’t just thinking machines of a sort as well.

Luke Dormehl

Thinking Machines

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