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The word "algorithm" has suffered wild semantic drift at the hands of journalists. Let's see if we can start to fix that now by making sure that on HN and in a
by cxr 4y ago
The word "algorithm" has suffered wild semantic drift at the hands of journalists. Let's see if we can start to fix that now by making sure that on HN and in adjacent communities of all places we use the appropriate words for the thing we are talking about.
We are talking about heuristics here, not algorithms.
- dewey 4y agoI would say that ship has sailed, just like "crypto" doesn't mean cryptography in the previous sense anymore.
- robocat 4y agoCrypto has its own meanings and cryptocurrency also has some of those other meanings (not just the historical connection to encoding). I especially like some of the biological metaphors: https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/crypto/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/crypto/index.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggressive_mimicry#Mimesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggressive_mimicry#Mimesis “cryptic aggressive mimicry is where the predator mimics an organism that its prey is indifferent to” i.e. wolf in sheep’s clothing.
- charcircuit 4y agoAlgorithm is the correct word. Why don't you think it is?
- cxr 4y agoFor the reason I already said.