“To me, an algorithm is any piece of automated code that accepts some number of variables and data, [then] uses those variables and data to make decisions. But that’s the boring computer science ...

It sounds a bit complicated, but algorithms are not magical things that live in our computers and dictate our digital lives at random. They are created by people and implemented to serve a purpose.

That question in the headline was the challenge posed by a group of open knowledge junkies in Germany who wanted to understand how a person’s Schufa was calculated. Schufa is a credit bureau that ...

The history of the social sciences has included a succession of advances in the ability to make observations and carefully test hypotheses. The compilation of massive data sets, for example, and the ...