The first week of block 3 on algorithmic cultures has ended and as expected it was a very informative experience delving into the depths of algorithmic cultures.
To finish up last week’s ethnographic song I started this week’s lifestream with some more detailed observations about the songwriting MOOC’s community culture.
Next, I dove right into this weeks topics of algorithms with a fantastic talk by Kevin Slain on how algorithms shape our world. Mr Slain shows the fascinating world of financial algorithms that have largely taken over control of the global financial system in the last decade. Expanding on this trend I can wholeheartedly recommend last year’s bestseller book “Flash Boys” by Michael Lewis.
Staying on the topic of algorithms and the financial sector I started to explore the topic of cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin which is based on the blockchain algorithm, a cryptographically protected trustless accounting ledger that many people see as one of the biggest revolutions of the 21st century. Building on the principle of the blockchain developers have already started to expand the framework to not only include currencies but also social contracts, financial markets, property rights and e-government. A truly fascinating Harvard lecture on Ethereum, the platform on which these blockchain contracts are being executed, shows the dangers and possibilites of these brand new developments.
The following day I once more turned my attention to this exceptionally well written and thoroughly researched longform article about artificial intelligence – an incredibly long, but nonetheless fascinating, thought provoking and even frightening elaboration on the implications of artificial superintelligence. Expanding on that, I posted a video by Nick Bostrom, one of the more prominent thinkers in this field.
Finally, I posted my findings on this week’s task of exploring and playing around algorithms employed by technology companies in their web offerings. I used the YouTube recommendation engine to examine this topic, finding plenty of evidence for the often cited “filter bubble”.
It will be interesting to see next week how algorithms can be used to specifically improve education outcomes.