The world's largest trading and technology conference may not be the optimum environment in which to rail against the rise and rise of the algorithm, but that did not stop Kevin Slavin, the co-founder of the New York-based game developer Area/Code and a self-styled algo-sceptic, from having a go.

Slavin spoke yesterday during TradeTech, the industry conference organised by Worldwide Business Research, where he delivered a thought-provoking speech in which he warned that algorithms - a formula or step-by-step mathematical process for solving a particular problem - are changing the world around us (and not for the better).