Devil in the Stack: Searching for the Soul of the New Machine

This trenchant report from journalist Smith (Totally Wired) explores how coding is transforming the world. Smith recounts learning to code, touring Google’s campus, attending a conference for enthusiasts of the Python programming language, and interviewing myriad programmers and computer scientists to better understand the downstream effects of entrusting the construction of society’s digital architecture to coders, a group composed “overwhelmingly [of] white and Asian men.” The balanced assessment finds that for every Quincy Larson, who created a free online coding boot camp to diversify the field, there’s someone like the libertarian Google employee Smith met at a conference whose tendency to abstract moral issues led him to believe unhoused people deserve to live on the streets for failing to make use of allegedly abundant economic opportunities. The nuanced conclusion Smith draws from his conversations is that coding depends on abstraction; “files are abstractions for bytes on a disc” that are themselves packaged and abstracted by additional layers of code. In a sophisticated analysis that would make Marshall McLuhan proud, Smith posits that such abstractions alienate users and coders from the consequences of their online actions, suggesting, for instance, that social media companies are inured to the harms they cause because the intricate workings of their self-learning algorithms are opaque even to those who create them. A searing philosophical take on the ravages of the digital age, this is a must-read. (Aug.)