Drawing Algorithms
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An algorithm, drawn by a 43-year-old male professor of sociology in the US.

I have a last drawing request, which is if you could draw how an algorithm works. And I'll keep this on so you can narrate it. Okay. I'm going to draw a decision tree. Okay. So the most rudimentary form of algorithm I know is just a decision tree where... So if x, then y. So you start here, entry point to the decision tree. If something happens, you go this way. If something else happens, you go this way and when you go that way. So that's what algorithms do is... In our minds, we have algorithms that we use in an offhand manner. But when you get into electronic networks, you're looking at much more complicated algorithms that have many more decision points, many more choice points and many more effects than [a] human can handle at a time. And so that's what I'm sort of drawing here is a decision tree type of thing. How do you know about algorithms? Well, I teach about them. I research them to some degree and so, but I knew about them before that, because it's just sort of in my research on mental health, one of the evidence-based practices for mental health care is medication algorithms. So that's basically you try this medication. If it doesn't work, then we move to this medication, then to this medication. So it's another decision tree. Algorithms these days are more involved. You hear about algorithms more, when we talk about internet and artificial intelligence and that sort of thing. Okay. Thank you.