DEVIL IN THE STACK

How algorithmic code works and what it means for our future.

As Smith, author of Moondust and Totally Wired, explains, computer code operates according to a “haunting alien logic” that grants extraordinary—and, in some ways, frightening—powers. The author tracks the history of coding from early computing pioneers to contemporary innovators in machine learning, while also documenting his own attempts to learn coding language as a means of understanding how our virtual worlds are being constructed. Smith provides refreshingly accessible accounts of the theoretical contributions to the field made by such early luminaries as Ada Lovelace, George Boole, John von Neumann, and Alan Turing and of the coding cultures that currently exist at high-tech companies around the globe. The author gives readers a vivid sense of the potential of new developments in AI, as well as the forbidding threats to privacy and human autonomy posed by the systems. The book also includes insightful commentary on the psychological impact of immersing oneself in the abstractions of code and on the workplace dynamics that fuel a rather ruthless and antisocial mode of innovation. There is, the author makes abundantly clear, a very real cost to relinquishing control of our lives to machines and machine logic. Smith dedicates the book to “those who would move slow and fix things,” and he presents his work as a guide to both comprehending and appropriately resisting the emergence of toxic forms of digital mediation. The author concludes that activism on this front will require a concerted effort informed by the high stakes involved: “Big Tech pushback and lobbying against moderation of their power will be as intense as the motor and oil industries’ decades-long war on climate science, and for the same reasons.”

An engaging plunge into the world of code and its transformative implications.