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

Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World Reviews

• 
  ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣

  Q:
  At a 2010 black-tie banquet in Chicago, a spry Jarecki spotted Scholes across the room nursing a cocktail and lightly conversing. Jarecki made his way over to the Nobel laureate. “You know, you still have our Nobel Prize,” Jarecki said to Scholes. The remark elicited a dry grimace. “He was not amused,” Jarecki says. (c)
  Q:
  The financial industry, as is the case with most high-paying fields, tends to be dominated by men who are wont to hire more men. So when Peterffy hired the tallest, prettiest, most buxom women he could find, the plan was more than a bit novel. The tactic worked miracles for his order flow. Suddenly, the specialists always took his trades. They put their arms around his traders, chitchatted, and recognized the blondes’ orders as fast as they were issued. “The specialists were thinking, ‘These dumb blondes, what do they know, right?’” Peterffy says.
  It’s true that the women Peterffy hired didn’t know much about trading, let alone algorithms. But none of his traders at that time were any good out on their own. And none of them were using the sheets for guidance anymore. Peterffy had devised a new system that empowered anybody to make smart trades. (c)
  Q:
  The key to it all was a dependable flow of pure data that few others had. And data, as so many hot companies of today have demonstrated, can be the difference between domination of an industry and failure. Peterffy’s operation pioneered the automated compilation and employment of vast data stores on Wall Street, where the mining of such things got its start. (c)
  Q:
  He explained his success: “You gotta be able to calculate doo-boop-be-deeliyaboop—deal! I can do that.” He had learned math, he said, studying astronomy in the Netherlands and in the air force ...
  
  Van Peebles’s story accentuated the success of the most improbable trading squad roaming the pits of New York, perhaps to this day: three blonde women and one highly acclaimed black writer, director, and actor, all of them well-disguised proxies of an algorithm that dwelled inside a machine. (c)
  Q:
  Technically, a market maker is required to keep both bids and offers up at all times, no matter where the market goes. But Peterffy had been bending the rules, as a lot of market makers did, cherry-picking the trades he wanted according to the instructions of his algorithm. At no point was he maintaining constant bids and offers. (c)
  Q:
  O’Connor was so secretive about its methods that when it bought two hundred Symbolics computers in the mid-1980s, executives shredded the packaging so Dumpster-diving competitors couldn’t determine what technology the firm used. (c)
  Q:
• 
  Alex Givant

  Excellent review on how automation impact all directions of our live (investments, health, dating, education, etc) and how it'll eliminate some professions (such as pharmacist) and replace them with robots. Don't be scared yet, but read the book to find what is waiting us behind the corner. Highly recommended, bought it today on BookOutlet (
  https://bookoutlet.ca/Store/Details/9...) - for $5.79 you cannot beat the price - planning to read it more times.
• 
  May Ling

  Summary: Great book with wonderfully curated examples of how automation has come to pass. I don't love the conclusion. I don't think Steiner meant to do it, but it seems a bit negative.
  
  Automate This has wonderful Wall Street, Medical, and Musical examples that draw a person in. I find what he has to say super relevant. My concern is that his conclusion of that the future belongs to algos and that we should teach STEM somewhat misses the point of the automation, which is to augment human life so that we, i.e. people, can do something else. That something else is scary, but it can also be beautiful and not related to STEM, which... quite frankly, are just iterations of itself (Science is the physical application of Math and Engineering and technologies are just off-shoots of applied Science or Math).
• 
  Dave

  When you hear "This call may be recorded for quality purposes," Steiner says you're often hearing a company warning you that an algorithm (or "bot") is about to listen in on your call to determine what kind of person you are. In 30 seconds the bot characterizes you and may match you with a similar personality type working in customer service.
  
  This has all kinds of implications for medicine, law, accounting, and many other service fields that would seem at first glance to be immune to the powers of quantification. But the takeover of bots is coming, according to Steiner.
  
  Bots have already begun to take over entertainment (Pandora, Netflix, this very site), and they will soon replace pharmacists, some legal functions, and more.
  
  Steiner's book is a fun read, beginning with the rise of algorithms in the world of finance. That part was the most entertaining to me. But the whole book is most engaging and easy to read.
• 
  Terry

  This book is the nugget of what could have been a much better and is just good enough to make me frustrated that it wasn't better.
  
  The contention of this book is that more and more of our lives are ruled or influenced by algorithms, sets of instructions that provide a somehow optimized outcome based on simple yes or no decisions. The sections outlining the history of alogrithms are quite interesting and involve a tour of Arab mathematics and the work of Bool and Liebniz but the discussion on modern algorithms is disappointing. The author seems to use algorithm almost any time his criterion is met and this can lead to confusion. He calls Chaos Theory an outgrowth of set theory which I consider at best a stretch and confuses objective vs. subjective. Finally, the author seems to refer to just about all math as algorithms which while being technically accurate when applied doesn't mesh with how I think most people use the term.
  
  The opening few chapters are wonderful as it tracks the personal story of a Wall Street wiz but the end where he hammers on about people leaving Wall Street for Silicon Valley seems out of place. His commentary on how the future workforce will be full of the displaced is reasonable but the logic is undeveloped and leaves much to the imagination.
  
  Finally, the book leaves the reader wanting for hard information about how modern algorithm development works and treats them as a black box. I think this is a disservice to the reader and developers of data-intensive applications.
• 
  George Kaslov

  Most people when they hear the word automation think of large factories. The factories were the only place where automation was present for a long while, but the author shows us the places where automation has slowly crawled in and even taken over. The most surprising thing for me was the importance of Wall Street in this change. This book was incredibly enlightening for me, not just because this is what I am studying for, but also as a major wake up call.
• 
  Ahmed Khalaf

  It's not usual for me to give a 5 to a book that is not fictional. But this book is different. I got it late. I mean the book is released at 2012 andI bought it at 2017. I read it at 2020. I could only imagine it would be a life changer to me if I could read it earlier. If you love science, then you must read it. If you like programming, then you must read it. If you want to know about technology, then you must read it. And finally, if you really think you understand how are the things in your life is working, then you definitely must read it. Because, you are WRONG.
  It might seem to be a shallow book about certain information of programming. But I assure you. If you look deep, this is a very serious book. It is handful and could guide you to a better future.
• 
  Maheswaran

  I should maybe stick to my rule of not rating any tech books here. I am sure I will be very biased and will mostly give it a 4 or 5. I usually have something or the other that I find very interesting in there.
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed each area that the author explored and how algorithms have changed it. From Wall Street trading to the music industry. Well, a lot. I felt small having not done anything big from a tech perspective. But I too have felt ripples of someone losing a job to a code that I put in. Lets not go there.
  
  A very interesting read for a techie. Should be interesting for others as well to understand what is going on.
• 
  Azzaz Akl

  "If you’re keeping track, algorithms already have control of your money market funds, your stocks, and your retirement accounts. They’ll soon decide who you talk to on phone calls; they will control the music that reaches your radio; they will decide your chances of getting lifesaving organ transplants; and for millions of people, algorithms will make perhaps the largest decision in their life: choosing a spouse. At least they don’t drive"
• 
  Garrett Lachney

  This book seemed a little myopic in its breadth of material covered. I would say half, or perhaps even more than half, of the book was devoted to how algorithms have revolutionized Wall Street. I got the impression early on that the author’s research was weighted in this direction; perhaps this is the world he lives in or the people he interviewed most, and therefore the material he felt most comfortable writing about.
  
  The rest of the book read as surface-level anecdotes where algorithms were put to work doing various things, like making music, optimizing customer service lines, or helping to read medical diagnostic scans.
  
  What left me with a really sour taste in my mouth was a claim that was made near the end of the book. The essence of it was that unless you know how to write algorithms, your job will be replaced by one. While I don’t argue with the general intent of this premise (in the long run), I felt that the book laid very, very shaky groundwork to make that kind of statement.
  
  Like I mentioned, aside from the Wall Street examples, much of the book is anecdotal: how a few companies have implemented or are implementing algorithms to improve things. And the idea that, just because algorithms exist, means that “human versions” of those creations are irrelevant is not based on anything. There’s a chapter on music, for example. Algorithms can create wonderful music, as good as the most fluent of songwriters. Does that mean that the “demand” for singer/songwriters goes away? Maybe, maybe not, but this is not addressed.
  
  AI was also not addressed at all. How can there be a meaningful discussion about automation taking over the world without talk of machine learning? I’ve also read claims that AI will CREATE the algorithms that automate work one day. Wouldn’t that invalidate Steiner’s whole claim that there will always be demand for good quant people?
  
  The bad here is overcome somewhat by a few things: a) I felt the writing style was excellent. The tone was consistent, topics flowed nicely, and explanations were concise. b) I know more about this stuff than I did when I picked up the book. That’s the first thing I look for when I read non-fiction. c) the anecdotes from other chapters, shallow as they may have been, were interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the quest for a new fiber optic line between Chicago and New York or the way a European musician got his start thanks to a tech startup that analyzed music.
  
  In my opinion, he needed to either leave the last chapter out of the book where the claim is made that algorithms will take over everything OR provide a broader discussion about machine learning, AI, algorithms, and job/trade data to back up that assertion in a more meaningful way.
  
  
  
• 
  Віталій Роман

  Як магістр з автоматизації технологічних процесів, скажу, що тут не про класичну автоматизацію. Краще б було назвати книгу "Тотальна алгоритмізація".
  
  Тези:
  1) популярність комп'ютерних технологій, як і програмних алгоритмів - хвилеподібна
  2) інженер, щоб бути успішним, обов'язково повинен уміти "кодити" алгоритми
  3) вже зараз настав час, коли людина не на всі 100 % керує своїм життям, віддаючи частку прийняття рішень алгоритмам
• 
  Toofan

  Audiobook: Audio quality: Good, Narration: Good
  It was interesting and informative but not always engaging.
• 
  Avolyn Fisher

  Good, perhaps showing its age a little, 9 years later.
• 
  Keith

  Some harsh reviews here on GoodReads - too journalistic, too superficial. Nevertheless, for dummies like me this was an enjoyable discovery of the many, many ways algorithms are influencing our lives. The idea of a "bot" as your doctor is quite attractive given the ever-increasing levels of complexity and change that your average general practitioner must master in order to give -hopefully - an accurate diagnosis of a patient complaint. The inside story of tracking down the exact chords that open The Beatles song "Help," apparently a long held mystery, with algorithms is fascinating. Some of the older Wall Street hacks are interesting and demonstrative of a rebellious entrepreneurial spirit, the guy who hacked the NASDAQ machine is one example or the people who built their own private dark fiber network between New York and Chicago is another. What Chris Steiner does, and this is, I think, the core of the book, is to irrevocably demonstrate what happened when Wall Street set out to rule the world with algorithms. Faster and faster transactions and increasingly bizarre financial instruments (CDOs anyone?) plus a persistent and raucous vacuuming up of the top engineering and computer science talent in the country.
  

  By early 2008, automated bots accounted for 60 percent of all U.S. stock market trades, and the financial industry had spent seven years sucking up every deft graduating engineer, physicist, and general Renaissance man who had even a mild attraction to a large starting salary and a bonus big enough to buy most Americans’ homes twice over. Wall Street had grown to become a larger hirer of math, engineering, and science graduates than the semiconductor industry, Big Pharma, or the telecommunications business.
  

  
  
  The result of this is exemplifed in the observations of Duke professor Vivek Wadhwa: “As a new faculty member at Duke, Wadhwa watched as many of his brightest students ended up on Wall Street, conjuring up the very instruments that would lead the world to the brink of economic collapse—collateralized debt obligations, the Gaussian copula (a fine formula that was misused by the Street), and trading algorithms that could go wild at any moment.”
  
  In his conclusions Steiner sees a silver lining in the crash of 2008 and the consequent massive layoffs from Wall Street which is the migration of much of that quantitatively oriented brain power to Silicon Valley. This is a changes of focus to using data for ends more social than financial. Steiner is not all apple pie and roses carefully noting some of the inherent problems that a data-driven society must be aware of. A readable tale of changes affecting us all.
• 
  Maree

  A fascinating glimpse into the future as well as the open secret world of bots that quietly exists around us today. While I thought I was pretty up on technology, there were still algorithms that I hadn't realize existed, such as ones that compose music, or the ones that match you to similar personalities in a call center. It's amazing, and perhaps a little scary. But as the author says, they aren't going away any time soon, and I believe that they have the capability for a lot of good.
  
  I really got blocked in chapter two when the history of man and math popped up. It was a little much for my english major brain. But after that, the real world examples of what code and algorithms are doing, starting in the stock market and graduating to the future of healthcare, is definitely worth absorbing.
  
  Another great point was the section on NASA astronaut training. I knew they had some serious personality tests going on in there, but reading about how some of the psychs could figure out their personalities and how they might work/clash with others just after ten minutes of conversation made me want to learn more about it too. I may have to look it up. I'd definitely say that I lead with thoughts-based.
  
  I obviously missed my calling. Should have became a quant and earned millions. But that math/science death march got to me in junior college. Guess that's what I get for taking the easy way out.
  
  The end of the book talks about how everyone should take a programming class in school. That's something I'd 100% support for any of my future kids, not to turn them into quants, mind you, but to give them a greater understanding of this new world they would be born into that is going to rely on algorithms to do the heavy lifting.
• 
  Andrea James

  As a number of the other Goodreads reviewers have mentioned, this is like an extended magazine article, albeit a rather enjoyable one I reckon. The book is light reading and doesn't go into the technical side of algorithms but I thought the author told the stories relatively well (in a typical Malcolm Gladwell way, a style that seems to dominate popular science books these days).
  
  I picked up in this book because bots are getting increasing better at making decisions and it's interesting to learn examples when computers are being used - either to do jobs that humans were never able to do or to replace the ones that we used to do. We often think of computers as doing non-creative, repetitive calculations but the algorithms that engineers have been developing are really quite incredible. From composing music (which people aren't able to distinguish from human compositions) to listening into our phone calls so that they can match us up with a call centre agent who is better suited our personality. The latter may need more work from my experience :)
  
  Understanding how people make decisions feeds into machine learning but also the opposite is also true. By crunching the data on millions of decisions made, computers are able show patterns of our behaviour and show up what people actually do not what they say they intend to do. We can even monitor, analyse and record our own individual choices so that we can more honestly assess and improve our decisions. Well, until the machines completely take over our lives that is!
  
  All in all, it's a fun book especially if you are relatively new to this topic.
• 
  Boni Aditya

  Wow! An amazing read, the author is a master storyteller. In a story about automation, the author found a way to keep the audience engaged, throughout the book, I was hooked.
  
  The author begins with the incredible story of a Hungarian Immigrant hacking the Wall Street protocols to build an automaton that could trade. It then goes from one place to another in a sequence, it goes to match making for kidney transplants, goes on to, Health Care and Prescriptions, also touches on Paralegals, it also moves to the Silicon Valley and then goes back to the Wall Street again in quick succession. The Author delves into the history of automation, and of algorithms from the first person who created an algorithm, to the woman who wrote the concept of the first software and then flash forwards to the pioneers of various algorithms that changed the world. The story about saving 4 milli seconds between the NSE and Chicago, could only be described as a "Rabbit Hole in the Wall Street". The story about a scientist trying to build a music making machine, in a quest to decipher the mystery of the beetles first string, could only be described as "Searching for a String in a haystack of Musical Noises".
  
  Before reading the book, I was of the opinion that automation hasn't reached the doorsteps of intellectuals. I also had a few qualms that a few industries can never be touched by algorithms, due to the very creative nature of these jobs. But, the author made it extremely clear that nobody is safe from algorithms, no career is an exception, everybody can be automated, except may be the people building those automatons. So the only career that is worth pursuing is CODING!
  
  But that is not the best takeaway from this book, Yes, there is something much better that the author has dealt with in the penultimate chapter.
  
  He talked about the great concept of "USING PHDs to do Janitors Work!"
  
  Even Better "Converting The most productive and creative people in the nation into parasites and debt slaves"
  
  Much Better "Using the best Engineering Talent in the country to count Beans"
  
  HE TALKED ABOUT THE TREND OF THE BEST MINDS IN THE COUNTRY SOLD OFF TO WALL STREET FOR A MILLION DOLLAR SALARIES
  
  Let me explain this vicious loop to my future self - in case I might forget this great concept.
  
  1. The Best minds of the country graduate from premier institutes, left to their own means they would pursue their passions and some of them eventually would strive to convert their passions into profits i.e. become entrepreneurs, this has always been the case with smart people!
  
  2. During this process, they create new ventures, companies and organizations that employ millions of people, create new industries and drive the engine of growth forward in a country. Eventually creating tax revenue generating BEHEMOTHS, say General Motors, Facebook, General Electric, Ford. The Entire Industrial prowess of USA lies in this VIRTUOUS CYCLE!
  
  3. Where ever there is growth, there are PARASITES, i.e. MIDDLEMEN who do little or no work, but start taking their cuts. FINANCE is one of the most vicious parasites, second to none is a FLYBOT PARASITE -RENT - The FIRE sector is general is the parasites that eats away most of the growth in an economy, even before it can reach the hands of the growth drivers and growth creators. There are other parasites, like corruption etc... but let us limit the discussion to FIRE parasites, since the author discussed them at length.
  
  4. The FIRE parasite then starts preying on everything in the economy, which causes the costs of every transaction to rise, i.e. the price of studying in college also skyrocket, as the prices increase, so will the stress of the graduating class, whose only though after graduation is "LOAN ON MY HEAD"
  
  5. In an attempt to clear their loans faster, they take up the best paying jobs, the well paying jobs, often are in PARASITE SECTORS and INDUSTRIES - Why? It pays well to be able to take money without actually building anything! Yes, because they found a way to take a cut without producing anything of value! SO THEY ARE ABLE TO PAY MORE TO GRADUATING STUDENTS.
  
  6. These Graduating students are then employed in the PARASITE SECTORS, to improve the efficiency of these parasites, i.e. how to suck more blood and juice out of the system. There is a very beautiful term to describe this "FINANCIAL ENGINEERING", how do you engineer tools, such that you can take more money and more money, for the same goods and services. Such the last ounce of blood from the caracasses of the consumer, thereby the economy, which means that these graduates increase the efficiency of parasites, which further increase the prices i.e. the prices of the degree they obtain.
  
  7. There is a two pronged loss at play here 1. The best minds in the country are turned into parasites, hungry for money. 2. They are stolen from the otherwise CORE engineering INDUSTRIES that would have employed them to drive growth in the economy. Thus, with one stone called - STUDENT LOAN, you hit both the eyes of the bird (economy/country) and make it blind ! The opportunity cost of employing the best minds in the country away from building great companies and pushing them to become bean counters and build ever more complicated financial tools, i.e. various permutations and combinations of futures, forwards, options, swaps and other derivatives and selling them across various markets to save pennies for their money hungry masters! is extremely huge.
  
  8. The PARASITE sectors forget that they can only suck the blood of the economy which has "GROWTH" - Deprived of the great minds that drive growth, the economy starts to falter, but attenuating this wound are the very great minds, which have now become parasites and started searching all over the economy for ways to suck the LAST BLOOD from it. Eventually the economy become strained by a tug of war between these two factors, of no growth coupled with parasites drawing blood - eventually leading to a complete collapse i.e. the ECONOMIC CRISIS OF 2008
  
  9. Which then release these great minds from the clutches of the failed PARASITE companies, and lets' them choose their real professions. i.e. engineering and driving real growth in the economy.
  
  This is the vicious loop of TOP GRADUATES GOING TO WALL STREET AND NOT TO MAIN STREET OR THE SILICON VALLEY
  
  The author captured this in a beautiful way! That is why I love this book, so much.
  
  
• 
  Fee

  This was an excellent book of explaining how our modern world is perishing with ways to become rich, as computers and programming are taking our jobs. It starts off explaining the life of Petterfy who was ahead of his time with knowing computers and programming before it was known by only the biggest businesses in the sixties. It wasn't till later that he showed the stock market that you did not have to be there to control it. The book continued with explaining other cool examples. Beatles Algorithm: Person could tell from first few cords if song was written by John or Paul. Online dating algorithm explains the real odds is once the relationship starts, not how you meet or what you have in common. Hammerbacher was last character mentioned, went to school as an English major and changed to Math at Harvard, needed to be stimulated with the top information as he was hired by sucker berg during early developments of facebook, but got bored. He even talks about baseball and its algoritms, but I can leave that to you to read. Great read. Anything is better than Infinite Jest and talking about canadians, bostonians, and tennis all day.
• 
  Jim

  Really thought-provoking book about how mathematical algorithms, coupled with any given current technology at a time in history, has led to massive efficiencies and gains - starting with the algorithm's pioneer(s) and eventually spreading to everyone. The key areas the author focuses on: Wall Street and Finance, Hollywood, the music industry, customer service call centers, and of course social media. The author also devotes a small chunk of the book to giving credit to key mathematicians throughout history who have contributed either directly to the study of algorithms or indirectly by way of key mathematical concepts/advancements.
  
  Although the material is hardly "light reading", the author does a very good job of conveying heavy mathematical and technological concepts through examples, and also by way of leaving out unnecessary, confusing details that only small groups of people would even begin to understand.
• 
  Arman Hilmioğlu

  I liked it. I was expecting more details over job loss overall; but I enjoyed its focus on financial sector. Some of the best parts in my opinion was around Wall Street directly, how the programming started transforming finance industry (and the really early days was interesting to read). There are take aways as well but this isn’t really a future-telling book, it basically points at what has been and what is. Very briefly touch bases with what will be.
  
  It was also nice to read about programmers who quit their jobs in banks, investment companies to get something in the valley.
• 
  Noah

  Steiner shares many stories of early innovators that used computers and algorithms before most people even believed computers would make a difference. Many of the innovators turned out to be computer 'hackers' alongside their current profession or knew how to bring hackers in to their companies. Ultimately, Steiner suggests that possibly the most useful skill to have now and in the future is the ability to write computer programs and design algorithms.
• 
  Thom

  The author notes how Wall Street brought algorithms into the mainstream, how when Wall Street crashed that other fields had a sudden influx of quantitative talent, and how algorithms will soon take over everything. Put another way, many lovely anecdotes and much good information, but the history is all quite recent and somehow connected to Wall Street.
• 
  Edwin

  It is actually more around 200 pages, because it had a long thank you at the end, which I skipped. It also has an extensive references list at the end, so that is very nice if you want to read more on each of the subjects that are being written about.
• 
  Kevin

  A lot of motherhood and apple pie for anyone who follows the state of the art in computer learning and decision making. Lot's of great anecdotes and history, though.
• 
  Siddharth Singhal

  Just received my pre-order :)