Algorithms are neat; they also build huge companies. Google's pagerank algorithm is the most obvious example, providing value to billions on a daily basis. It's the Coke recipe of our time.

Another mainstream example? Amazon recommendations. An algorithm which literally extracts value for that company by analysing buying behaviours and reflecting personalised insights back to users (now with Facebook integration).

Demand Media (just fresh off a big IPO) delivers content to match searches, using an algorithm to predict not just popular search topics, but those with high advertising potential (amusingly, I think of it as a form of algorithmic parasite organism, dependent on Google as a host; if the GOOG changes, it has to evolve also).

As data volumes & complexity increase, it's becoming clear that algorithms which automate insights and reveal patterns are not just currencies. They are more like creators of currency.

Creating algorithms which allow people to extract value from data, or to combine two data sets, can be within the reach of even normals like you and I. A while back, I worked with a couple of friends on our idea to rewrite Wikipedia as Mickopedia (creating a 'mickified' version of the site), creating a script which used an algorithm to apply 'linguistically warp' the target data. It's crude but it works, providing what is theoretically, in the words of one of my colleagues on the job "an infinite humour generator".

On the '100 Monkeys' Algorithm

But here is Philip Parker, the guy who has a patent on an algorithm which automates content creation. Yes: it writes books automatically. Number published? 200,000+. Even better, number of digital poems written... over 1.3 million.

On the 'Algorithmic Corporation'

Others are going even further. Here is John Clippinger of Law Lab (who sounds like a kind of amoral polymath) describing how corporations can be created 'on the fly', by algorithms.

These don't just automate the company incorporation and mathematically determine how best to configure legal entities, but in time could actually create the corporation automatically in response to a market need.

So, the future? No wars. It will just be a bunch of algorithms doing battle.

Note: for more on Google's algorithm, you should know the awesome Matt Cutts. Unless you're a search geek you've probably not heard of this guy. He is awesome and if you google and get a result, you owe him. He is basically the wizard who wrote the fireball spell.

Further reading
Demand Media's Planet of the Algorithms", Bloomberg Business, Jan 2011
Algorithms take control of Wall Street", Wired, Jan 2011