Algorithm
An algorithm is a series of precise steps that, followed in order, solve a problem, like a recipe, an Excel formula or a search.
Select any words here to ask your Maestro about them.
In a sorted list of 1,000 tickets, you open the middle one, throw out the half yours isn't in, and repeat. It takes 10 checks at most. What about a million tickets?
What the word is for: talking about how something gets solved, not what solves it. A recipe, the instructions for putting together a bookshelf and an Excel formula are all algorithms: they say what to do, in what order and when to stop. A computer just runs them very fast. A script is an algorithm written for a computer to run.
Why it matters: for the same problem, some algorithms take a long time and others very little, as in the grid. And when people talk about "a social network's algorithm," they mean the rules it uses to pick what you see, often learned with machine learning.
To see what steps an AI follows when it calculates with your file, see What does an AI do with your file before it gives you a number?.
How it's used
The algorithm, step by step
Finding a ticket in a sorted list
- marked: Open the ticket in the middle
- If it's yours, you're done
- If yours is lower, keep the half before it; if it's higher, the half afterThe other half can't have it: the list is in order.
- Repeat with the half that's left
When to look closer
Is AI an algorithm that always gives the same answer?
The same input, twice
- marked: =SUM(B2:B6) with 15, 7, 8, 13 and 7
- marked: "Sum up these sales in one sentence," first time
You ask an AI chat the exact same question twice. Does it answer in the same words?
Ask your Maestro about Algorithm
It answers from the free course page closest to this word, the way it answers while you study.
You: What does "Algorithm" mean, in plain words?
Your Maestro: I'll explain it with a case of yours: it sticks better than a definition. Which task you repeat at work could you already write down as steps?
Asking about: Answers from the page "How do you know it's right?"
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Related terms
- Script
A script is a short program, saved in a text file, that does one task from start to finish every time you run it, the same way each time. It doesn't think or guess: it reads what you give it, does its steps and hands back a result or an error.
- LLM (large language model)
An LLM is a program trained on huge amounts of text to continue a piece of text one chunk at a time: it works out which chunk is likeliest to come next and writes it. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all run on an LLM.
- Machine learning
Machine learning has a program learn rules from examples that come with answers, instead of someone writing them, so it can predict new cases.
- VLOOKUP
VLOOKUP looks for a value in a table's first column and returns the data from another column in that row: =VLOOKUP(E2,A2:C9,3,FALSE).