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I agree. However, your use of "algorithms", while more technically correct than the average usage, is also in the minority. The article seems to focus on the culture that lauds algorithms. In that context, the interchangability of "God" and "algorithm" converges. Here are a few remarks from that angle, supplementary to your comment. I think the mainstream use of the term "algorithm" (or nearly any buzzword) is at the mercy of myriad competing forces seeking to impose their interpreation on the phrase. At least one of those forces is marketing, which has incentive to offer parapharsed, sugar-coated snippets of what something is. This plays on a common aspect of human nature, which is to feel more secure in a situation in which one feels confident that things are accounted for. There are remarkable similarities in what priests, scryers, prophets, and oracles once did, and what, presently, the media, marketers, investors, fans, geeks philosophically abstracting from their technical work, and advocates of theories do-- namely, a presentation of truth from a limited set of the inititated to the mass public. While it is true that algorithms have their place, it is also true that much of what is said about "algorithms" is part aggrandization, part embellishment, part over-simplifcation by marketers, media, non-technical users, or technical users who have a divergent system of beliefs, and invest much thought and effort into a potential future which may or may not occur, and which is not directly related to their technical work (e.g. technological singularity, etc.). It's always good to (in theory) maintain perspective on such things, and not get carried away by an over-application of a singular idea. |