The Irrational Decision
How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us
$39.99
- Hardcover
280 pages
- Release Date
16 June 2026
Summary
How the computer revolution shaped our conception of rationality and why human problems require solutions rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgement.
In the 1940s, mathematicians set out to design computers that could act as ideal rational agents in the face of uncertainty. The Irrational Decision tells the story of how they settled on a peculiar mathematical definition of rationality in which every decision is a statistical question of risk. Benjamin…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691272443 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0691272441 |
| Author: | Benjamin Recht |
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Imprint: | Princeton University Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 280 |
| Release Date: | 16 June 2026 |
| Weight: | 310g |
| Dimensions: | 18mm x 140mm x 216mm |
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Critics Review
“Clear, authoritative, easy to follow, and full of quotable phrases about the folly of giving optimizers and computers the power to govern our lives.”—Jathan Sadowski, Critical AI
“The Irrational Decision is not a polemic against mathematical rationality in all of its forms, but instead a more precise strike against the dominance of the rational worldview. Recht’s argument, at its core, is that mathematical rationality has become an overextended tool, a hammer asked to not just hammer nails but turn screws and saw boards as well.”—Jacob Sujin Kuppermann, Reboot
“Even if you’re not a fan of Michael Polanyi or participatory decision making, I think you’ll still enjoy the journey, which as well as a lot of interesting history includes enough back-of-an-envelope descriptions of important maths to make you feel a lot cleverer while you’re reading it.”—Dan Davies, Back of Mind
Benjamin Recht
Benjamin Recht is professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author (with Stephen J. Wright) of Optimization for Data Analysis and (with Moritz Hardt) Patterns, Predictions, and Actions: Foundations of Machine Learning (Princeton).
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