Mashable’s series Algorithms explores the mysterious lines of code that increasingly control our lives — and our futures. “The Algorithm” is impenetrable. It’s mysterious, it’s all-knowing, it’s ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you’ve been making the same commute for a long time, you’ve probably settled on what seems like the best route. But “best” is a ...

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 ...

When Elon Musk first proposed taking over Twitter, one the first changes he claimed he'd make would be “open-sourcing” Twitter’s algorithm. Last week, Twitter finally followed through on that promise, ...

Algorithms have taken on an almost mythical significance in the modern world. They determine what you see on social media and when browsing online, help form people’s belief systems, and impact the ...

In algorithms, as in life, negativity can be a drag. Consider the problem of finding the shortest path between two points on a graph — a network of nodes connected by links, or edges. Often, these ...

For better accountability, we should shift the focus from the design of these systems to their impact. Describing a decision-making system as an “algorithm” is often a way to deflect accountability ...

The X logo appears on a smartphone screen. (Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (NurPhoto via Getty Images) When X's engineering team published the code that powers the platform's ...

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen urged Congress to “change the rules that Facebook plays by” and regulate the platform’s algorithm when she testified before the Senate on Oct. 5. By the end of ...

LinkedIn support accidentally revealed its algorithm: it tracks "viewer tolerance," reducing visibility for authors whose posts are consistently ignored. To succeed, diversify content types weekly, ...

Some dating app users say manipulative algorithms suppress the good matches. When tech companies run romance, the truth is hard to grasp. Reading time 12 minutes Last year, a friend came to me with a ...

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech ...