Algorithms to Live By

The Computer Science of Human Decisions

hardcover, 368 pages

Published April 26, 2016 by Allen Lane.

ISBN:
978-0-670-06831-9
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4 stars (9 reviews)

3 editions

Review of 'Algorithms to Live By' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book is more than I hoped it would be. I was expecting a bunch of clinical algorithm descriptions and proofs, with accompanying discussions about how each algorithm might apply to "the real world". That would have been interesting enough, and the early sections did have that sort of feel with quotes like:

If you want the best odds of getting the best apartment, spend 37% of your apartment hunt (eleven days, if you’ve given yourself a month for the search) noncommittally exploring options. Leave the checkbook at home; you’re just calibrating. But after that point, be prepared to immediately commit—deposit and all—to the very first place you see that beats whatever you’ve already seen. This is not merely an intuitively satisfying compromise between looking and leaping. It is the provably optimal solution.



That's interesting, and possibly practical. But a bit later we get this:

And it’s actually rational to …
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