Algorithms Have Already Gone Rogue
My only objection to this is a semantic one -- the word &quot;algorithm&quot; is not being well-served here.  The correct word for this sort of thing is &quot;heuristic&quot;.  The concern isn&#x27;t that algorithms themselves are incorrect, the concern is that the problem they are trying to solve is a heuristic one, not a formal one.<p>Saying &quot;let&#x27;s write an algorithm to improve search results&quot; is meaningless; &quot;let&#x27;s design and implement a heuristic that improves search results&quot;.  The algorithmic part of this is how to efficiently implement that heuristic.<p>I can usually get through articles like this by silently replacing &quot;algorithm&quot; with &quot;heuristic&quot;; the problem arises when some articles attempt to draw equivalencies between &quot;algorithmic&quot; concepts, like running time and space, and &quot;heuristic&quot; concepts, like optimizing for the wrong thing.