Do People Trust Algorithms More Than Companies Realize?

Since the 1950s, researchers have documented the many types of predictions in which algorithms outperform humans. Algorithms beat doctors and pathologists in predicting the survival of cancer patients, occurrence of heart attacks, and severity of diseases. Algorithms predict recidivism of parolees better than parole boards. And they predict whether a business will go bankrupt better than loan officers. According to anecdotes in a classic book on the accuracy of algorithms, many of these earliest findings were met with skepticism.