Algorithm
a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. An algorithm presumes all conundrums within the domain of the algorithm have been finally resolved, so the process can operate without obstruction or intervention from a guiding intelligent hand.
Compare with a heuristic.
Of particular interest in financial services:
- High-frequency trading computers follow algorithms faster and more reliably than a mortal trader could dream of;
- The dogma of outsourcing is predicated on a playbook; a form of algorithm for the meatware.
also of great interest to evolutionary biologists, psychiatrists and philopsophers: According to Daniel Dennett, the great (if unstated) insight of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species was that the evolutionary process was a mindless, algorithmic one, that could operate without intervention.
That piece of magic: that the something of rice pudding and income tax that could come from the nothing of primordrial sludge, without a beneficent creator, is the basis behind the current dogmas of artificial intelligence, and the belief that no intelligence, let alone subject matter expertise, is needed to effectively run a complex process such as (for totally random example) the onboarding of trading counterparties in an investment bank.