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"Algorithm" is a dirty word in the UK at the moment. The Ofqual grading algorithm sucked. Even the BBC had a go at algorithms. But let me tell you about some algorithms that improve and save lives. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53806038
Gale and Shapley's Deferred Acceptance algorithm is used by most local education authorities to allocate kids to schools. It has 2 great properties: 1) if your kid was rejected from a school, no kid with a lower priority was accepted. 2) you don't need to strategise your ranking!
Many complex algorithms (inspired by the Top Trading Cycles algorithm) are used to match pairs [of renal diseases patients and their generous, but incompatible, donors] with each other in the hope cross-pair compatibilities. Such "kidney exchanges" saves 100s of lives every year.
@HIASrefugees uses a cool algorithm based on machine learning and integer optimization to find the communities around the US that are most likely to help resettled refugees find jobs. Algorithms can also be used to help find the most suitable foster parents for kids who need them
So. There is nothing inherently bad about "algorithms". They are just sets of instructions to a computer. You can write horrible instructions, just like you can write horrible tweets or make horrible speeches.
Amazing young scientists are developing new algorithms every day to make the world better. For example, check out the papers at @MD4SG whose workshop is happening this week: http://md4sg.com/workshop/MD4SG20/program.html.
