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Book Review: Probably, Approximately Correct!

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:36 am
by MSI
Oct 1, 2013: NY Times Evolution, Speeded by Computation
A book review by Edward Frenkel in today's NY Times is about a book by Harvard computer scientist Leslie Valiant and appears to be an interesting addition to the "algorithm" book In this book, the review begins:
  • "Our daily lives are growing ever more dependent on algorithms, those omnipresent computational procedures that run programs on our laptops, our smartphones, our GPS devices and much else. Algorithms influence our decisions, too: when we choose a movie on Netflix or a book on Amazon, we are presented with recommendations churned out by sophisticated algorithms that take into account our past choices and those of other users determined (by still other algorithms) to be similar to us.

    The importance of these algorithms in the modern world is common knowledge, of course. But in his insightful new book “Probably Approximately Correct,” the Harvard computer scientist Leslie Valiant goes much further: computation, he says, is and has always been “the dominating force on earth within all its life forms.” Nature speaks in algorithms."
Please see the complete review Evolution, Speeded by Computation and get the book.
I've ordered it and will post up a review once received and read!