From internationally-bestselling author and journalist

From internationally-bestselling author and journalist

Andrew Smith, an immersive, alarming, sharp-eyed journey into the bizarre world

of computer code, told through his sometimes painful, often amusing attempt to

become a coder himself Throughout history, technological revolutions have been

driven by the invention of machines. But today, the power of the

technology transforming our world lies in an intangible and impenetrable cosmos

of software: algorithmic code. So symbiotic has our relationship with this code

become that we barely notice it anymore. We can't see it, are not even sure how

to think about it, and yet we do almost nothing that doesn't depend on it. In a

world increasingly governed by technologies that so few can comprehend,

who--or what--controls the future? Devil in the Stack follows Andrew Smith on his

immersive trip into the world of coding, passing through the stories of logic,

machine-learning and early computing, from Ada Lovelace to Alan Turing, and up

to the present moment, behind the scenes into the lives--and minds--of the new

frontierspeople of the 21st century: those who write code. Smith embarks on a

quest to understand this sect in what he believes to be the only way

possible: by learning to code himself. Expansive and effervescent, Devil in the Stack delivers

a portrait of code as both a vivid culture and an impending threat. How do we

control a technology that most people can't understand? And are we programming

ourselves out of existence? Perhaps most terrifying of all: Is there

something about the way we compute - the way code works - that is innately at

odds with the way humans have evolved? By turns revelatory, unsettling, and

joyously funny, Devil in the Stack is an essential book for

our times, of vital interest to anyone hoping to participate in the

future-defining technological debates to come.

From internationally-bestselling author and journalist Andrew Smith, an immersive, alarming, sharp-eyed journey into the bizarre world of computer code, told through his sometimes painful, often amusing attempt to become a coder himself Throughout history, technological revolutions have been driven by the invention of machines. But today, the power of the technology transforming our world lies in an intangible and impenetrable cosmos of software: algorithmic code. So symbiotic has our relationship with this code become that we barely notice it anymore