9th century Persian polymath Al-Khwārizmī needs credit. His treatise about linear equations was the most widely read in Europe during Middle Ages. “Algorithm” is a corruption of his name, referring to the decimal system from his book.
In 21st century, algorithms shape the world: “game of life,” robot-cleaners, algorithmic trading which runs 70% of Wall-Street (screwing it in 2010, Flash-Crash), e-commerce (a book “Making of Fly” being 23 million on Amazon), rental (60% of Neflix’s rental run by an algorithm), even Hollywood (an algorithm deciding which movies to produce) and health.
We have little idea about how much algorithms know/can do…