"The algorithms used by Amazon to set and update prices started outbidding each other." (Image by J.J. Harrison.)

Algorithms increasingly run many aspect of our lives, but sometimes this computer-generated math we can barely comprehend runs amok. An excerpt from a cautionary tale about algorithms by Jane Wakefield at the BBC:

“At last month’s TEDGlobal conference, algorithm expert Kevin Slavin delivered one of the tech show’s most ‘sit up and take notice’ speeches where he warned that the ‘maths that computers use to decide stuff’ was infiltrating every aspect of our lives.

Among the examples he cited were a robo-cleaner that maps out the best way to do housework, and the online trading algorithms that are increasingly controlling Wall Street.

‘We are writing these things that we can no longer read,’ warned Mr Slavin.

‘We’ve rendered something illegible. And we’ve lost the sense of what’s actually happening in this world we’ve made.’

Algorithms may be cleverer than humans but they don’t necessarily have our sense of perspective – a failing that became evident when Amazon’s price-setting code went to war with itself earlier this year.

The Making of a Fly – a book about the molecular biology of a fly from egg to fully-fledged insect – may have been a riveting read but it almost certainly didn’t deserve a price tag of $23.6m (£14.3m).

It hit that figure briefly on the site after the algorithms used by Amazon to set and update prices started outbidding each other.

It is a small taste of the chaos that can be caused when code gets smart enough to operate without human intervention, thinks Mr Slavin.

‘This is algorithms in conflict without any adult supervision,’ he said.”

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Slavin’s TED Talk about algorithms infiltrating our lives: