At this years VMworld one of the most interesting presentations came from Kevin Slavin – Co-Founder of Area/Code. He’s an excellent presenter, and is aided by having a really interesting topic, and really important message to impart.
His talk was one that is also available on ted.com. He was a little slicker on the ted.com site, than he was on stage at VMworld. So if your interested I would watch it there. The premise is this that whereas maths/algorthims once described the world around us, now maths/algorthims are (re)shapping our world. He gives a couple of examples – the scary world of the stock-exchange where now 70% of all transactions are conducted by algorithms that only have one human control – the stop button. As well as situations where algorthims both predict and then shape human behaviour – such as the NetFlix algorthims which account for 60% of transactions – by recommending movies you might like to watch.
On the plane home I noticed the guy sat opposite me was reading a book on the subject. I assummed he’d been a delegate. Turns out this guys helps support the infrastructure that allows these algorthims to operate in the financial services sector. I also assummed the book had been written by Kevin Slavin. Turns out its by some other guy. The book is called – Automate This – How algorithms came to rule the world by Christopher Steiner. It looks a good book on the subject so I’m thinking of getting for my iPAD (Kindle on iPAD).
So if you weren’t at VMworld or missed the Thursday Keynote because you were nursing a Jon Bon Jovi hangover, then I would highly recommend giving this a view:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html