Christopher Steiner “Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World”

　“Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World” by Christopher Steiner.

　The author, who is an engineer and a journalist carefully depicts the coming of age in which algorithms rule finance, music, and medicine as well as IT.

　“Hackers” who divert the concept to algorithms will build a new empire. They are not business school people. He depicts the power shift. The area such as art and design that creative are involved is not secure, either. Algorithm is starting to penetrate.

　First, music. The memory of the case of musical compositions created by the algorithm “EMI,” developed by David Cope surpassing the works of classical music professors and being praised at the same level as Bach’s musical compositions is still fresh. I can understand the hostility of Wall Street traders toward algorithm, and the classical music world’s refusal of works created by algorithm.

　To improve the speed between the future in Chicago and the present in NY by 4/1000 second, Dan Spivey ran the optic fiber in a route that was shorter by 160km and proposed annual communication fee of $3 million that was 10 times of other companies. The world of ultra fast algorithm is also defined by a physical hardware.

　SUN cofounder Vinod Khosla says 90 – 99% of medical needs will be replaced by accurate and cheap medicine that uses algorithm, and ordinary doctors will be unnecessary.

　In 2008, the trading volume of the U.S. stock market by automated algorithm has reached 60%. The financial industry gathered all kinds of math and science talents from graduate schools. It is said that 1/4 of MIT graduates from their graduate school got jobs on Wall Street.

　Because of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the situation changed completely, the era of science elites pursuing finance ended, and they headed to Silicon Valley. They aimed for constructive and creative jobs instead of high paying broker business, even if it was risky.

　The talents that headed to the west coast in late 90s headed to the east coast due to the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, then returned to the west coast after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and they are currently supporting the smarting and un-smarting. This makes me think of the dynamism of America that is like a pendulum.

　Regarding Google Car, the author states that almost all of the annual auto accident deaths of 33,000 in the U.S. are by human errors, and we may be able to eliminate almost all of auto accident deaths, if the algorithm drives the car.

　“Race Against the Machine” written by Professor Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT warns that many jobs will be taken over by machines, and the author says lawyers and writers are no exceptions.

　For this, the author suggests “familiarization” instead of opposition. In contrast, he points out the insufficient math and science education, and suggests that a curriculum should be formulated that enables all high school students try programming once. I agree.