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 ...

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. The new tab will only show your friends’ stories, reels, posts, and birthdays. The new tab will only show your ...

You might have heard that algorithms are in control of everything you hear, read, and see. They control the next song on your Spotify playlist, or what YouTube suggests you watch after you finish a ...

If you’ve ever paused a video on TikTok to wonder why it’s being shown to you, you know about the mysteries of the popular short-form video app’s algorithm. A post with no caption and minimal ...

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 ...

SpaceX uses 3D printers and a process of relentless refinement to streamline its Raptor engines. In the Raptor 3, plumbing and wiring that had been on the outside were fused into the motor’s metal ...

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 ...