Language and the Rise of the Algorithm
Seiten
2022
University of Chicago Press (Verlag)
978-0-226-82253-2 (ISBN)
University of Chicago Press (Verlag)
978-0-226-82253-2 (ISBN)
A wide-ranging history of the algorithm.
Bringing together the histories of mathematics, computer science, and linguistic thought, Language and the Rise of the Algorithm reveals how recent developments in artificial intelligence are reopening an issue that troubled mathematicians well before the computer age: How do you draw the line between computational rules and the complexities of making systems comprehensible to people? By attending to this question, we come to see that the modern idea of the algorithm is implicated in a long history of attempts to maintain a disciplinary boundary separating technical knowledge from the languages people speak day to day.
Here Jeffrey M. Binder offers a compelling tour of four visions of universal computation that addressed this issue in very different ways: G. W. Leibniz’s calculus ratiocinator; a universal algebra scheme Nicolas de Condorcet designed during the French Revolution; George Boole’s nineteenth-century logic system; and the early programming language ALGOL, short for algorithmic language. These episodes show that symbolic computation has repeatedly become entangled in debates about the nature of communication. Machine learning, in its increasing dependence on words, erodes the line between technical and everyday language, revealing the urgent stakes underlying this boundary.
The idea of the algorithm is a levee holding back the social complexity of language, and it is about to break. This book is about the flood that inspired its construction.
Bringing together the histories of mathematics, computer science, and linguistic thought, Language and the Rise of the Algorithm reveals how recent developments in artificial intelligence are reopening an issue that troubled mathematicians well before the computer age: How do you draw the line between computational rules and the complexities of making systems comprehensible to people? By attending to this question, we come to see that the modern idea of the algorithm is implicated in a long history of attempts to maintain a disciplinary boundary separating technical knowledge from the languages people speak day to day.
Here Jeffrey M. Binder offers a compelling tour of four visions of universal computation that addressed this issue in very different ways: G. W. Leibniz’s calculus ratiocinator; a universal algebra scheme Nicolas de Condorcet designed during the French Revolution; George Boole’s nineteenth-century logic system; and the early programming language ALGOL, short for algorithmic language. These episodes show that symbolic computation has repeatedly become entangled in debates about the nature of communication. Machine learning, in its increasing dependence on words, erodes the line between technical and everyday language, revealing the urgent stakes underlying this boundary.
The idea of the algorithm is a levee holding back the social complexity of language, and it is about to break. This book is about the flood that inspired its construction.
Jeffrey M. Binder is an affiliate fellow at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Humanities and Information.
Introduction
Chapter One
Symbols and Language in the Early Modern Period
Chapter Two
The Matter Out of Which Thought Is Formed
Chapter Three
Symbols and the Enlightened Mind
Chapter Four
Language without Things
Chapter Five
Mass Produced Software Components
Coda
The Age of Arbitrariness
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 31.10.2022 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 22 halftones |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 567 g |
| Themenwelt | Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Theorie / Studium |
| ISBN-10 | 0-226-82253-2 / 0226822532 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-226-82253-2 / 9780226822532 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
was jeder über Informatik wissen sollte
Buch | Softcover (2024)
Springer Vieweg (Verlag)
CHF 53,15
Grundlagen – Anwendungen – Perspektiven
Buch | Softcover (2022)
Springer Vieweg (Verlag)
CHF 48,95
Eine Einführung in die Systemtheorie
Buch | Softcover (2022)
UTB (Verlag)
CHF 34,95
