Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
How algorithms from computer science can inform everyday decisions
"There's a fundamental trade-off between exploration and exploitation."
— Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths
My Review
This book reveals that computer scientists have independently discovered many of the same optimization strategies that evolution found. Explore/exploit trade-offs, optimal stopping, caching - these are computational solutions to the same problems organisms face. Essential for understanding decision frameworks.
Why It Matters
Computer science has formalized solutions to optimization problems that organisms solved through evolution. Understanding these algorithmic approaches provides rigorous frameworks for decision-making.
Key Ideas
- Explore/exploit trade-off is fundamental to optimization under uncertainty
- Optimal stopping: the 37% rule for sequential decisions
- Sorting and caching: optimize for what matters most
- Scheduling: priority queues and context-switching costs
How It Connects to This Framework
Book 2's resource dynamics chapters draw on algorithmic optimization. The explore/exploit framework is central to understanding foraging and resource allocation.
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