As it seems, with algorithms Homo sapiens managed to invent the tool he has always dreamed of. And yet, something worries us. Are the mailmen disappearing? Algorithms destroy jobs. Should an insurance company compensate the victim of an accident? A cynical algorithm will calculate the amount of compensation. Is the stock market collapsing? Responsible are the transactional algorithms. Do laws limit political freedoms? Government algorithms spy on us. Do algorithms beat humans in chess?

Soon smart algorithms will dominate us. Many consider algorithms the source of our woes, but this may be because we often use them without really knowing their nature and function. We fear algorithms because they seem mysterious, with obscure powers and evil intentions. In order to dispel these irrational thoughts, to separate reality from childish fantasies, legitimate fears from groundless concerns, the authors invite us to travel with them to the world of algorithms. There we will face some of the challenges of the so-called algorithmic era: among other things, the transformation of work, the loss of ownership, and the protection of privacy.

Algorithms can have positive or negative effects, but they have no intentions of their own. They serve our purposes because we invented them.