It's Monday, October 8, 2018, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds. I'm Kishore Hari. Indre will be back next week. Each week, we bring you a new in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide. We endeavor to endeavor, and why it all matters. You can find us online in Enquiring.com on Twitter and on Facebook.

And you also get an ad-free version of the show by supporting us at patreon.com slash

inquiring lines. And you can subscribe to the show on iTunes or any other podcasting app.

I've been devouring the new season of Serial, which is all about the criminal justice system in Cleveland.

And so many of the stories revolve around the human bias that emerges in that system, sometimes unintentional, sometimes benign, sometimes deeply harmful.

It has made me wonder if it would all be better without the

humans at all. So I pose the question to you. If you were accused of a crime, who would you rather

decide your sentence? A mathematically consistent algorithm, incapable of empathy, or a compassionate,

human judge prone to bias and error. This question seems out

of science fiction, but it is our current fact. Numerous court systems are using algorithms to help

sort and even decide cases. And algorithms don't just rule in the courtroom. They're becoming common

at the hospital, in our

cars, and certainly in our love lives. As we rely on algorithms to automate big, important

decisions, it raises questions about what we want our world to look like. This week's guest

takes a decidedly human view on algorithms with a mathematics twist in her new book,

Hello World. Dr. Hannah Frye is just one of my favorite science communicators. She's also an

associate professor in mathematics of cities at the center for advanced spatial analysis at

the University College London. She works alongside a unique mix of physicists, mathematicians,

computer scientists, and architects to study the patterns in human behavior, particularly in an

urban setting. Her research applies to a wide range of social problems and questions from shopping

and transport to urban crime, riots, and terrorism. She also regularly

appears on TV and radio and hosts one of my favorite podcasts, The Curious Cases of Rutherford

...