Algorithms to Live By Front Cover
Fascinating
Charles Duhigg
Lucid
Kirkus Reviews
Remarkable
Forbes
Compulsively readable
Alison Gopnik
Excellent
Cory Doctorow
Wonderful
David Eagleman
#1 National Bestseller in Nonfiction
Best Books of the Year, MIT Technology Review
Bestselling Business Books of the Year, Business Insider
Best Science Books of the Year, Amazon
Top Picks in Science, Barnes & Noble
Must-Read Brain Books of the Year, Forbes

A fascinating exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives, helping to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind.

All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades. And the solutions they’ve found have much to teach us.

In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, acclaimed author Brian Christian and cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths show how the simple, precise algorithms used by computers can also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one’s inbox to understanding the workings of human memory, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.

A fascinating exploration of computer science and the human mind
Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit
Entertaining, intelligently presented. Not just better problem solving, but also greater insight
Kirkus Reviews
Remarkably lucid, fascinating, and compulsively readable
Alison Gopnik, coauthor of The Scientist in the Crib
Christian and Griffiths have succeeded beyond all expectations. This is a wonderful book
David Eagleman, author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain