Will Algorithms Erode Our Decision-Making Skills?

Algorithms are embedded into our technological lives, helping accomplish a variety of tasks like making sure that email makes it to your aunt or that you're matched to someone on a dating website who likes the same bands as you. Sure, such computer code aims to make our lives easier, but experts cited in a new report by Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center are worried that algorithms may also make us lose our ability to make decisions. After all, if the software can do it for us, why should we bother? "Algorithms are the new arbiters of human decision-making in almost any area we can imagine, from watching a movie (Affectiva emotion recognition) to buying a house (Zillow.com) to self-driving cars (Google)," Barry Chudakov, founder and principal at Sertain Research and StreamFuzion Corp., says in the report. But despite advances, algorithms may lead to a loss in human judgment as people become reliant on the software to think for them.