There’s an algorithm for that. Or there soon will be

By Marina Bradbury. Would you like a machine to decide on your medical treatment, whether you could insure your house, if you should be hired, or what news stories you read? It may be happening to you already. Every time you go online to make a purchase, search for a restaurant, access your bank account or simply interact with your mobile device, you are creating a digital trail of data that is being tracked and stored. This “big data” is fodder for machine learning algorithms that will for example suggest what to buy. More...