On the internet, the algorithms are all around you.

You are watching this video because an algorithm brought it to you, among others, to click, which you did, and the algorithm took note.

When you open the tweet book, A, the algorithm decides what you see.

When you search through your photos, A, the algorithm does the finding.

Maybe even makes a little movie for you.

When you buy something, A, the algorithm sets the price, and A. The algorithm is at your bank watching transactions for fraud.

The stock market is full of algorithms trading with algorithms.

Given this, you might want to know how these little algorithmic bots shaping your world work, especially when they don't.

In ye olden days, humans built algorithmic bots by giving them instructions the humans could

explain, if this, then that.

But many problems are just too big and hard for a human to write simple instructions for.

There's a gazillion financial transactions a second. Which ones are fraudulent?

There's octillion videos on NetMe

Tube, which eight should the user see as recommendations, which shouldn't be allowed on

the site at all. For this airline seat, what is the maximum price this user will pay right

now? Algorithmic bots give answers to these questions, not perfect answers, but much better

than a human could do.

But how these bots work exactly more and more no one knows, not even the humans who built them, or built them, as we will see.

Now, companies that use these bots don't want to talk about how they work because the bots are valuable employees, very, very valuable.

And how their brains are built is a fiercely guarded trade secret.

Right now, the cutting edge is most likely very, I hope you like linear algebra,

but what the current hotness is on any particular site and how the bots work is a bit, I don't know,

...