Hello World

Computers used to be tools, then they were toys, and now they're all around us. You couldn't ask for a better guide to this bewildering new world than Hannah Fry, who fills Hello World with wit, storytelling and superbly clear insight. Bravo!

Tim Harford, author and presenter of The Undercover Economist and more recently Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy.

Hello World is an action-packed, quick read during which you will be outraged, provoked, and challenged. The numerous, meticulously researched examples reveal the astonishing new world we're living in, one where secret decisions with ambiguous goals are deciding our individual and collective fates. Welcome to the modern world of big data, you're quite possibly screwed.

Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction

Expertly told, wise and with a lightness of touch, Hannah Fry's brilliant exploration of how we live our lives in the age of AI will prompt arguments in pubs and over dinner tables for years to come.

Adam Rutherford

Hello World is a brisk and friendly guidebook to the algorithms all around us

Jordan Ellenberg

Editor's Choice: consistently illuminating

Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller

Hannah Fry's masterful and entertaining call to arms needs to be read by every last human who unthinkingly entrusts our destiny to algorithms. Because, what do you know, the machine-determined future may just work against our best interests, people.

David Rowan, Founder editor of WIRED UK

Fascinating and funny. I learned something on every page.

Tom Chivers, science correspondent of Buzzfeed

Hannah Fry is one of the best explainers on the planet. In Hello World she examines the ups and downs of living with algorithms everywhere, online and off, in our homes and workplaces, hospitals and supermarkets. She takes a serious subject and leavens it delightfully with her clear writing and captivating stories, and her trademark sense of humour and fun.

Steven Strogatz, author of The Joy of X

Hello World is a gem of accessible science writing. With eloquence and charm, Hannah Fry outlines the maths of computer algorithms and explains how they are transforming fields such as health, justice, transport and the arts. She is a wise guide to the benefits - and horrors of our increasingly data-driven world.

Alex Bellos, author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland

A stylish, thoughtful, and scrupulously fair-minded account of what the software that increasingly governs our lives can and cannot do ... A beautifully accessible guide that leaps lightly from one story to the next without sparing the reader hard questions... deserves a place in the bestseller charts.

Oliver Moody, The Times

Brilliantly clear...Fry succinctly outlines the ethical issues that beset AI

James McConnaiche, Sunday Times

With refreshing simplicity, Fry explains what AI, machine learning and complicated algorithms really mean, providing some succinct explanations of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, driverless cars and many other unnerving modern phenomena…This book illustrates why good science writers are essential.

Katy Guest, Guardian

Books of the Year

The Times

Books of the Year This short, sharp book on the power and dangers of algorithms offers one of the clearest explanations of a complex subject

FT

Books of the Year A perky, brief introduction to big data and algorithmic crunching…enjoyably sceptical

The Guardian

Books of the Year Hannah Fry’s is the most readable, lively and sensible account, neither catastrophising nor pumped with boosterism

The Times

Books of the Year

New Scientist

Hello World is an illuminating book on the ethical issues around data. Mathematician and presenter Hannah Fry leads us through the not-too-distant worlds of AI politics, healthcare and culture, probing the complex roles of data and algorithms through a range of eye-opening examples. ‘AI’ is a much-used but oft-misunderstood term, and here Fry lays out its impact with ease - 'Best Books of 2018'

WIRED

Top science writing

Evening Standard

She is doing to maths what Brian Cox has done for physics

The Times

Hannah Fry is quickly becoming the David Attenborough of maths.

Guy Kelly, Telegraph