The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to solve a tricky problem, it often helps to get organized. You might, for example, break the problem into pieces and tackle ...

In 1971, German mathematicians Schönhage and Strassen predicted a faster algorithm for multiplying large numbers, but it remained unproven for decades. Mathematicians from Australia and France have ...

In an era dominated by social media, misinformation has become an all too familiar foe, infiltrating our feeds and sowing seeds of doubt and confusion. With more than half of social media users across ...

Social media apps regularly present teens with algorithmically selected content often described as “for you,” suggesting, by implication, that the curated content is not just “for you” but also “about ...

Three new books warn against turning into the person the algorithm thinks you are. Like a lot of Netflix subscribers, I find that my personal feed tends to be hit or miss. Usually more miss. The ...

Companies, nonprofit organizations, and governments design algorithms to learn and predict user preferences. They embed these algorithms in recommendation systems that help consumers make choices ...

I’ve been losing a lot of time to YouTube lately. I don’t even know why. In a down moment, I just find myself heading to the homepage and watching whatever comes up (usually weird Tears of the Kingdom ...

People’s daily interactions with online algorithms affect how they learn from others, with negative consequences including social misperceptions, conflict, and the spread of misinformation, my ...