But here’s the absolute simplest definition: An algorithm is a set of guidelines that describe how to perform a task. (Click here for a cheat sheet.) Yup. As UCLA’s John Villasenor has pointed ...

Now, a group of social scientists describe how the functions of social media algorithms are misaligned with human social instincts meant to foster cooperation, which can lead to large-scale ...

In all these cases, plugging in random numbers at certain steps in the algorithm helps researchers account for uncertainty about the many ways that complex processes can play out. But adding ...