Weapons of Math Destruction : How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

from cmc

A nice overview of the misuses and inherent biases of many different decision-making tools based on "big data". O'Neil dubs these biased algorithms "Weapons of Math Destruction", and provides many examples of the negative effects of these tools, in particular, of the disenfranchisement, social im...

from dogboi

A WMD, Weapon of Math Destruction, is an algorithm that is a block box (opaque), used at scale, and damages the lives of people, generally poor minorities. Cathy O'Neil goes through a lot of detail describing several of these WMDs and how they are ruining people's lives. Hate Clopening? (working ...

from JosephKing6602

I really wanted to like this book; and while it was an easy & pleasant read, I was hoping that the author would go into a bit more depth regarding the actual types of 'math' that BIG data uses. What calculations are used to determine patterns? How are trends discovered?...What kind of powerful st...

from JosephKing6602

I really wanted to like this book; and while it was an easy & pleasant read, I was hoping that the author would go into a bit more depth regarding the actual types of 'math' that BIG data uses. What calculations are used to determine patterns? How are trends discovered?...What kind of powerful st...

from Stbalbach

Excellent repudiation of the prevailing ideology/religion of dataism. Its limitations and dangers. The stories presented here are not anecdotal or edge-case, they are central and impact nearly all of us. Dataism is seductive and the fault is usually not with the mathematicians or programmers, but...