The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

McDonald's announced recently that it purchased Dynamic Yield, an AI company it will use to analyze customer habits to try and sell them more food. When a hamburger shack is using algorithms to stoke ...

Algorithms have taken on an almost mythical significance in the modern world. They determine what you see on social media and when browsing online, help form people’s belief systems, and impact the ...