Digital quantification determines Americans’ quality of life. Algorithms select job applicants for interviews and employees for performance bonuses. They aggregate stories and products as we shop for ...
Computer scientists have written a network flow algorithm that computes almost as fast as is mathematically possible. This algorithm computes the maximum traffic flow with minimum transport costs for ...
Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price. Unhappy with their meager profits, they meet one night in a ...
Deepfakes – essentially putting words in someone else’s mouth in a very believable way – are becoming more sophisticated by the day and increasingly hard to spot. Recent examples of deepfakes include ...
As the world races to build artificial superintelligence, one maverick bioengineer is testing how much unprogrammed intelligence may already be lurking in our simplest algorithms to determine whether ...
You scrambled up a Rubik’s cube, and now you want to put it back in order. What sequence of moves should you make? Surprise: You can answer this question with modern algebra. You might remember ...
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.