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Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Brian Christian (Author, Narrator), Tom Griffiths (Author), Brilliance Audio (Publisher)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 6,204 ratings
Goodreads Choice Award nominee
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A fascinating exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives, helping to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind

All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades. And the solutions they've found have much to teach us.

In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, acclaimed author Brian Christian (who holds degrees in computer science, philosophy, and poetry, and works at the intersection of all three) and Tom Griffiths (a UC Berkeley professor of cognitive science and psychology) show how the simple, precise algorithms used by computers can also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one's inbox to understanding the workings of human memory, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.

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  1. Listening Length
    11 hours and 50 minutes
  2. Author
    Brian Christian, see all
  3. Narrator
    Brian Christian
  4. Audible release date
    April 19, 2016
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Brilliance Audio
  7. ASIN
    B01D24NAL6
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 11 hours and 50 minutes
Author Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
Narrator Brian Christian
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date April 19, 2016
Publisher Brilliance Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B01D24NAL6
Best Sellers Rank #4,998 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#11 in Computer Science (Audible Books & Originals)
#21 in Business Decision Making & Problem Solving
#46 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
6,204 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book thought-provoking and informative. They appreciate the humor and witty writing style. Many consider it a good value for money, covering a wide range of topics. However, opinions differ on readability - some find it easy to understand and legible, while others feel it gets too technical.

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Thought provokingHumorValue for moneyDepthReadability
206 customers mention "Thought provoking"194 positive12 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and interesting. They appreciate how it combines computer science with everyday situations and provides optimal solutions. The information is immediately applicable in their lives and work as therapists. Readers mention it has sparked interest in new topics like optimal stopping. The writing is lively, the examples are clear, and there's serious brain.

"...This book describes how computers solve their problems and at the same time it shows us how the problems computers solve are just like the ones we..." Read more

"...Overall, I’d call this a good-but-not-great book. I think it’s conceptually useful, but I also feel like I want to go off and dig into more about..." Read more

"...The talk was fascinating, and contained a nice mixture of computer science, statistics, and humor to win the crowd over, and Christian managed to do..." Read more

"Amazing insight into decision making strategies, biases and lack of them...." Read more

10 customers mention "Humor"10 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find it witty and engaging, with funny pearls of wisdom that make them laugh. The book is described as neither too serious nor too frilly, making it an enjoyable read.

"...a nice mixture of computer science, statistics, and humor to win the crowd over, and Christian managed to do so without coming across as too &#..." Read more

"...make decisions, all while being not too technical and injecting a little bit of humor." Read more

"...of topics, writing and organization are first rate The authors are good humored without pandering to the reader...." Read more

"...are applied to daily life and offer interesting, fun, and often funny pearls of wisdom that you may or may not have already encountered throughout..." Read more

10 customers mention "Value for money"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book provides good value for money. They say it's a great read with useful information on mathematics, statistics, and economics.

"...decisions and improve the rest of your life, the money and time spent on this book are cheap. Explore/Exploit comes immediately to mind...." Read more

"...This one deserves its five stars equally for pure practical value. Highly recommended." Read more

"It was a book that my daughter needed for class. The book was a good price on Amazon. It arrived on time." Read more

"The book is good insight into the cost of computation. The algorithms discussed have practical applications. It is an interesting read." Read more

7 customers mention "Depth"7 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's depth. They find it covers a wide range of material and tasks, including making a call schedule and finding the best parking spot. The choice of topics, writing, and organization are also praised.

"...This book has great depth. Remarkably, it has even greater range...." Read more

"...It covers a huge amount of material, and provides an authoritative first look at any of its topics the reader has not previously encountered...." Read more

"...It covers all sorts of tasks—making a call schedule, finding the best parking spot, managing children or adults who are challenge limits or are..." Read more

"...The choice of topics, writing and organization are first rate The authors are good humored without pandering to the reader...." Read more

136 customers mention "Readability"93 positive43 negative

Customers have different views on the book's readability. Some find it an easy-to-read introduction to information networks, with clear explanations and legible text. Others find the content too technical and difficult to absorb, with limited mathematics and theories getting blander as the book progresses.

"...recent election, and the chapter on networking gave a great, easy-to-read introduction to how information networks differ from telephony...." Read more

"...By doing so, the authors hope to destigmatize the word and get people to see the concept differently...." Read more

"...Well, I wasn’t 100% wrong. It was hard. However, I understood and I learned. Yes, I hit replay dozens of times, but I got it...." Read more

"Text is legible and printed the same size unlike other reviews, but the book odds a little unwieldy...." Read more

Could be better for sure
4 out of 5 stars
Could be better for sure
Text is legible and printed the same size unlike other reviews, but the book odds a little unwieldy. Not sure how to describe it but the book is quite hard to hold and read. Perhaps not enough margin between the center folds of the book and the edge of the text. Always feels like I have to peer into the cracks to read that last word of the sentence
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Rosemary Laberee
    5.0 out of 5 stars A highly readable and very informative read ~ great book!!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I got the audio version of this book a year ago. Every time I thought to dive in, I felt a mild quaking in my soul. Gah, this is gonna be so hard, I worried. As a mere mortal without any background in computer science, advanced mathematics, logic, or statistics and risk, I feared my reach exceeded my ability to grasp.

    Well, I wasn’t 100% wrong. It was hard. However, I understood and I learned. Yes, I hit replay dozens of times, but I got it. (Of course, after I ran through the audio version twice, I ordered the book because I just had to have it in my library.)

    I did not expect the multidisciplinary palette from which the authors created this work. While teaching me about optimization problems in computer science, I came better to understand mean-variance portfolio optimization, game theory, equilibrium strategies, and caching, just to name a very few. This book has great depth. Remarkably, it has even greater range.

    When examining the algorithmic dances that computers do nanosecond by nanosecond, we are also examining how we make decisions every day. Should I stay on this jammed expressway? How long should I wait for a table at my favorite eatery? Is it better to do three small laundry loads per week or have one big laundry day? How should I best arrange all of these books on my shelves? If you are like me, you have experienced that frustrating little circle, spinning and spinning, as your computer tries to wrest a result from the digital universe or just from your hard drive. When you are waiting for a taxi or a train, you are experiencing a life-size version that little spinning circle. When do you chalk it and look for Plan B?

    This book describes how computers solve their problems and at the same time it shows us how the problems computers solve are just like the ones we deal with and solve, day in and day out. This isn’t too shocking, since humans set up the computer decision-making trees in the first place. Still, when I am synthesizing many possibilities, or struggling with family schedule optimization problems, I really can’t wait to apply terms like “simulated annealing” and “the price of anarchy”.

    At the end of the day, when my family members are all doing the equivalent of sticking a thumb drive in my ear and starting their respective downloads, instead of objecting with: “Wait a minute, one at a time, I have to think!”, it will bring me joy to say, “Don’t trigger a Bufferbloat, guys, no one wants a Tail Drop.”

    Most fun fact I learned:

    “In contrast to the widely held view that less processing reduces accuracy, the study of heuristics shows that less information, computation, and time can in fact improve accuracy.” My translation? Don’t forget to ask grandma what she thinks, it’s likely to be spot on.

    I really loved this book. It is one I will return to often.
    56 people found this helpful
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  • James A. Thomason III
    4.0 out of 5 stars Almost hits the mark
    Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Annie Duke recommended this book (I forget if it was Thinking in Bets or Quit) and it sounded right up my alley. The nickel tour is that it was presented as attempting to apply various CS algorithms onto everyday life, to help us better interact with the world. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the book - it’s trying to straddle between computer science and psychology, and it sort of ends up failing at both.

    So you get a high level super fast intro to various algorithms, and then frequently an even faster handwavy concept of how you might be able to use those things in your life. I found myself wanting more of both sides - I wanted a richer explanation of the algorithms, and I definitely wanted more clear applications of them. Some of the chapters were better than others - the initial one on Optimal Stopping provided very concrete examples of dealing with the Secretary Problem, the intros to Bayes’s Rule was useful, though I felt everything in that chapter was too quick. But towards the end of the book, both the chapters on Overfitting and Relaxation, as well as Randomness were rather insightful in some of the strategies they were proposing and how they can be useful. The final chapter on game theory did bring it all home nicely. I was nominally offended by how quickly he glossed over bucket sort, because it’s a pretty awesome algorithm. Its even cooler cousin, and my favorite, radix sort wasn’t mentioned at all. Heaps are probably too difficult to construct in the real world, but there was a fair bit of time dedicated to how stacks of papers on your desk is an optimal sorting strategy, so I felt ahead of the game in that regard.

    Overall, I’d call this a good-but-not-great book. I think it’s conceptually useful, but I also feel like I want to go off and dig into more about how to use these algorithms in the real world. I mean, I know tons of algorithms, but I hadn’t really encountered anything explicitly encouraging their use outside of software. I’m sure I use the knowledge in the real world, but I feel like it’s a little buried under the surface, so maybe this’ll help bring it out a little more. So I think I may have some follow up homework to do, but this was a nice intro. Recommended.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Moises Rangel Silva
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gracias muy buen libro.
    Reviewed in Mexico on December 30, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Buen enfoque de las decisiones humanas con la ciencia de computación.
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  • Manesh Kumar
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good Quality
    Reviewed in the Netherlands on December 9, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Really good book, I gifted to my wife to read it, she is not IT engineer but she understands the logic and design of the software.
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  • Sandy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not for faint hearted but your world view will change after reading
    Reviewed in India on April 20, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    This is not a easy read. I completed the book and it took me some mental calisthenics to do so, but once you cross the bridge, you feel, the "epiphany". The topic are varied and covers many maths and computer science related problems but they are actually real world issues. Topics like prisoners dilemma and Game theory are actually applied during difficult negotiations. Vickey auction is especially useful then the bidders don't have a complete understanding of underling cost involved in running the business aka cost of capital for eg the cost of exploring an oil field or the cost of building a telecom network (often leading to under bidding). Win lose switch strategy, may be a good option when releasing a under trail drug which save lives but is not fully tested(case in the book was ECMO saving lives of children).

    Randomness, caching memory, overfitting are all discussed.

    My favourite chapter was ofcourse, Bayesian probability. Did you know the Bayes never published what would become his most famous accomplishment; his notes were edited and published posthumously by Richard Price. Furthermore it was de Laplace who came up with formula for probability ( r + 1 ) / ( n + 2 ).

    I sometimes wonder the life of a statistician where one sees probabilities and optimizations everywhere. In fact there is mention of how Tom leaves his socks lying near the bed to optimize caching, only to be admonished by his wife, for making a mess.

    All in all its a fantastic read, it will take some time to digest the material but once you internalize the concept your world view will change for ever. Happy reading
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  • swordiron
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in France on August 8, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Pleins de bonnes idées et de bons concepts à la limite entre la philosophie et l'informatique. Je recommande très fortement.
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  • Nic
    5.0 out of 5 stars Algoritmi per vivere: La scienza informatica delle decisioni umane
    Reviewed in Italy on March 16, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    "Algorithms to live by" è un libro davvero illuminante che ci mostra come la scienza informatica può aiutarci a prendere decisioni migliori nella vita quotidiana. Gli autori, Brian Christian e Tom Griffiths, applicano i principi dell'informatica e dell'ottimizzazione al mondo reale, aiutandoci a risolvere problemi come la gestione del tempo, la scelta della casa ideale, la decisione di lasciare o meno un lavoro e molto altro ancora. La scrittura è chiara e accessibile, e gli esempi sono divertenti ed istruttivi. Se sei interessato ad applicare la logica delle scienze informatiche alla vita quotidiana, questo libro è una lettura obbligatoria. Lo consiglio vivamente a chiunque abbia una mente curiosa e aperta.
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