Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. To order a copy for £16.33 (RRP £18.99) go to or call 03. Because, as Fry says, “the future doesn’t just happen. It’s time to pull back the curtain on the algorithms that shape our lives. And if we don’t understand it, those difficult questions will be answered by those who do – pharmaceutical companies, malign governments and the like. “We have a tendency to overtrust anything we don’t understand,” Fry says. This book illustrates why good science writers are essential. And, in the case of Facebook and users’ data, “how cheaply we were bought”. But working together, human and AI-machine can be the perfect team.įry makes a convincing case for “the urgent need for algorithmic regulation”, and wants the public to understand the compromises we are making. Protecting victims of crime or preventing innocent people being falsely accused Hello World takes us on a tour through the good, the bad, and the downright. “We have somehow managed to be simultaneously dismissive” of algorithms, “intimidated by them and in awe of their capabilities”, she argues. Its a book about how weve slowly handed over control to computers how there are algorithms and artificial intelligence hiding behind almost every aspect. In one chapter, she explains how a man who nearly followed his satnav off a cliff is similar to the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and to voters being manipulated by social media.

Fry, a mathematician, is a passionate advocate for maths and technology, but keen that we don’t put too much faith in them.

Hello world fry