Language and the rise of the algorithm
(Book - Regular Print)
Author
Published
Chicago ; The University of Chicago Press, 2022.
Physical Desc
321 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Appears on these lists
Status
More Details
Published
Chicago ; The University of Chicago Press, 2022.
Format
Book - Regular Print
Language
English
Notes
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description
"A wide-ranging history of the intellectual developments that produced the modern idea of the algorithm. Bringing together the histories of mathematics, computer science, and linguistic thought, Language and the Rise of the Algorithm reveals how recent developments in artificial intelligence are reopening an issue that troubled mathematicians long before the computer age. How do you draw the line between computational rules and the complexities of making systems comprehensible to people? Here Jeffrey M. Binder offers a compelling tour of four visions of universal computation that addressed this issue in very different ways: G. W. Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator; a universal algebra scheme Nicolas de Condorcet designed during the French Revolution; George Boole's nineteenth-century logic system; and the early programming language ALGOL, whose name is short for algorithmic language. These episodes show that symbolic computation has repeatedly become entangled in debates about the nature of communication. To what extent can meaning be controlled by individuals, like the values of a and b in algebra, and to what extent is meaning inevitably social? By attending to this long-neglected question, we come to see that the modern idea of the algorithm is implicated in a long history of attempts to maintain a disciplinary boundary separating technical knowledge from the languages people speak day to day. Machine learning, in its increasing dependence on words, now places this boundary in jeopardy, making its stakes all the more urgent to understand. The idea of the algorithm is a levee holding back the social complexity of language, and it is about to break. This book is about the flood that inspired its construction. "--,Provided by publisher.
Description
Loading Description...
Also in this Series
Checking series information...
Copies
Location | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Embry Riddle Aero University - CIRCCOLL - Circulating Collection | QA9.58.B56 2022 | Find It Now |
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Citations
APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)
Binder, J. M. (2022). Language and the rise of the algorithm . The University of Chicago Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Binder, Jeffrey M.. 2022. Language and the Rise of the Algorithm. The University of Chicago Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Binder, Jeffrey M.. Language and the Rise of the Algorithm The University of Chicago Press, 2022.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Binder, Jeffrey M.. Language and the Rise of the Algorithm The University of Chicago Press, 2022.
Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.
Staff View
Loading Staff View.