The Irrational Decision

Name: The Irrational Decision
Price: 54.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780691272443

How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us

Benjamin Recht

$54.99

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Princeton University Press
10 March 2026

History of ideas; Philosophy of mathematics; History of mathematics; Impact of science & technology on society; Mathematical theory of computation

How the computer revolution shaped our conception of rationality-and why human problems require solutions rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment

In the 1940s, mathematicians set out to design computers that could act as ideal rational agents in the face of uncertainty. The Irrational Decision tells the story of how they settled on a peculiar mathematical definition of rationality in which every decision is a statistical question of risk. Benjamin Recht traces how this quantitative standard came to define our understanding of rationality, looking at the history of optimization, game theory, statistical testing, and machine learning. He explains why, now more than ever, we need to resist efforts by powerful tech interests to drive public policy and essentially rule our lives.

While mathematical rationality has proven valuable in accelerating computers, regulating pharmaceuticals, and deploying electronic commerce, it fails to solve messy human problems and has given rise to a view of a rational world that is not only overquantified but surprisingly limited. Recht shows how these mathematical methods emerged from wartime research and influenced fields ranging from economics to health care, drawing on illuminating examples ranging from diet planning to chess to self-driving cars.

Highlighting both the power and limitations of mathematical rationality, The Irrational Decision reveals why only humans can resolve fundamentally political or value-based questions and proposes a more expansive approach to decision making that is appropriately supported by computational tools yet firmly rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment.

By: Benjamin Recht
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780691272443
ISBN 10: 0691272441
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 10 March 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Benjamin Recht is professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author (with Stephen J. Wright) of Optimization for Data Analysis and (with Moritz Hardt) Patterns, Predictions, and Actions: Foundations of Machine Learning (Princeton).

Reviews for The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us

""Clear, authoritative, easy to follow, and full of quotable phrases about the folly of giving optimizers and computers the power to govern our lives.""---Jathan Sadowski, Critical AI ""The Irrational Decision is not a polemic against mathematical rationality in all of its forms, but instead a more precise strike against the dominance of the rational worldview. Recht’s argument, at its core, is that mathematical rationality has become an overextended tool, a hammer asked to not just hammer nails but turn screws and saw boards as well.""---Jacob Sujin Kuppermann, Reboot ""Even if you’re not a fan of Michael Polanyi or participatory decision making, I think you’ll still enjoy the journey, which as well as a lot of interesting history includes enough back-of-an-envelope descriptions of important maths to make you feel a lot cleverer while you’re reading it.""---Dan Davies, Back of Mind