From internationally-bestselling author and journalistAndrew Smith, an immersive, alarming, sharp-eyed journey into the bizarre worldof computer code, told through his sometimes painful, often amusing attempt tobecome a coder himselfThroughout history, technological revolutions have beendriven by the invention of machines. But today, the power of thetechnology transforming our world lies in an intangible and impenetrable cosmosof software: algorithmic code. So symbiotic has our relationship with this codebecome that we barely notice it anymore. We can't see it, are not even sure howto think about it, and yet we do almost nothing that doesn't depend on it. In aworld increasingly governed by technologies that so few can comprehend, who--or what--controls the future?Devil in the Stack follows Andrew Smith on hisimmersive trip into the world of coding, passing through the stories of logic, machine-learning and early computing, from Ada Lovelace to Alan Turing, and upto the present moment, behind the scenes into the lives--and minds--of the newfrontierspeople of the 21st century: those who write code. Smith embarks on aquest to understand this sect in what he believes to be the only waypossible: by learning to code himself. Expansive and effervescent, Devil in the Stack deliversa portrait of code as both a vivid culture and an impending threat. How do wecontrol a technology that most people can't understand? And are we programmingourselves out of existence? Perhaps most terrifying of all: Is theresomething about the way we compute - the way code works - that is innately atodds with the way humans have evolved? By turns revelatory, unsettling, andjoyously funny, Devil in the Stack is an essential book forour times, of vital interest to anyone hoping to participate in thefuture-defining technological debates to come.
