Technical jargon: What does "algo" actually mean?
If you have ever wondered why, after buying an item on the Internet, you are offered it for a while on all the websites you visit, then one thing is to blame: the algo. A bad one, though. If, while surfing the Internet or visiting your social media account, you are made aware of things that make you think "Mmh, that's interesting" and even click on them, then you also have the algo to thank for this, but this time it's the good one. Algo is short for algorithm. Almost everything that helps us navigate the world today, whether geographically, economically or socially, is based on algorithms. An algorithm is nothing more than a filter based on a series of conditions or - metaphorically speaking - a sieve with a certain grain size and shape. Sounds simple, but it is not.
*Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the section "Vom Fach" in the NZZ FOLIO and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms that can be used either for small talk, being important, getting excited, playing Scrabble or simply for fun.
Mathematics is for men
The world's first algorithm is attributed to the British mathematician Ada Lovelace. She was the first to write a complex program based on an algorithm at the end of the 19th century. But as is the case when women invent something, it is not attributed to them. The reason here: The "Analytical Engine" machine was never completed and so her invention could be safely ignored - at least as far as taking credit was concerned.Male mathematicians then clawed away at the content, which anticipated the essential aspects of developments later known as programming languages. And so, under the dictates of the mostly male techies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, algorithms became the engine of artificial intelligence. They are allowing machines to do more and more things that only humans were capable of not so long ago: algos recognize patterns, interpret behaviour, understand languages and play out advertising campaigns, albeit always at the wrong time, in the wrong place and with the wrong messages. Sometimes the parameters are to blame, sometimes the process, but never the algorithm. And that somehow reminds us of masculine virtues.
