#22 Algorithms to Live By | Audiobook Review
Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Context & Why I read this book
2021 is my year of rationality and the quite popular “Algorithms to Live By” seemed to be a natural fit. However, since I was skeptical I listened to this as an audiobook during some casual runs through the parks of Munich, instead of reading it.
What is the book about as a whole?
It tries to show, how algorithms for caching, sorting, stopping, … can help solve problems in everyday life.
The book’s structure
11 chapters, each targeting a special class of algorithms:
- Optimal Stopping — When to Stop Looking
- Explore/Exploit — The Latest vs. The Greatest
- Sorting — Making Order
- Caching — Forget About it
- Scheduling — First Things First
- Byes’s Rule — Predictign the Future
- Overfitting — When to Think Less
- Relaxation — Let Is Slide
- Randomness — When to Leave It to Chance
- Networking — How We Connect
- Game Theory — The Minds of Others
One lesson
I heard this a couple of months ago and unfortunately lost my note on it (thank you Audible); so the only lesson I am taking with me for now, is that it contains some very interesting tidbits on exploring/exploit and sorting and that I want to reread this in physical book format.
Reading Recommendation / Who should read this?
Although it has some hilarious examples for the application of the algorithms that can and should not be taken seriously (like using an algorithm to find a soulmate) it contains many worthwhile and insightful bits of information; both for people unaware of algorithms (as an introduction) as well as those who studied something like computer science (as a way of transferring their knowledge to other domains). The book is good. I rate it 6 out of 10 (⭑⭑⭑). I would not recommend the audiobook version, though, and I will probably reread it in book form. The reason is that there are too many interesting references that I wanted to look up. For such a book I would highly prefer a paper or eBook version.