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Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Unavailable
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Unavailable
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Audiobook6 hours

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

Written by Cathy O'Neil

Narrated by Cathy O'Neil

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life - and threaten to rip apart our social fabric

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives-where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance-are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.

But as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary audiobook, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can't get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he's then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a "toxic cocktail for democracy." Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.

Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These "weapons of math destruction" score teachers and students, sort résumés, grant (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, target voters, set parole, and monitor our health.

O'Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important audiobook empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 6, 2016
ISBN9780735286511
Unavailable
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Author

Cathy O'Neil

Cathy O’Neil is the author of Weapons of Math Destruction.

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Reviews for Weapons of Math Destruction

Rating: 4.018773037542663 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Yes, this book does deserve its title in all caps.Written by Cathy O’Neal, who loves numbers possibly more than I do, this book does an excellent job of showing the public all of the algorithms that rule our lives that aren’t ideal and why they aren’t ideal. In a non-mathy way, which makes me quite sad and why I have rated this book 4/5. I wanted my math!Back to the book. What makes this book great is O’Neal doesn’t just talk about the worst WMDs (Weapons of Math Destruction – and remember that, because that is how she refers to them) but also covers some systems that DO work really well and WHY they work. If you are frustrated with the outcomes that keep coming up in your life, read this book. If you hate math but want to understand what is going on with all those ads, how what you do can affect so many different things throughout you life!Well written and easy to read, this book was flowing and well paced. A good read, I don’t want to spoil this for anyone interested. It’s worth the read and no single part is better than the rest. If you are interested in what controls so many things around you, read this. Read this now.I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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 statistical procedures are used in analyzing the sea of data that is produced by the internet data pools? The examples were real and thought-provoking. I believed her warning about the danger of these tools for our democracy. However, I felt the author's theme in this book was scatter-shot and needed to be more focused on the specialty of data science. But overall, I am glad that I read it. #bigdata
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A chilling analysis of the big data algorithms that rule our society in ways we don’t always realise, and how their results impact us negatively, increasing inequalities and injustices in groups where it would be most needed. Most of the chapters focus on the American reality, but it’s not hard to imagine how they would translate to our side of the pond.
    Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book spent a lot of time telling stories and avoided taking a deeper dive on data science. A lot of this would have been better suited to a series of longer blog posts. If you’re interested in data science and how it’s affecting the world around us, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Weapons of Math Destruction" lays out a number of clear and creepy cases of how predictive algorithms get things wrong, with negative and, in some cases, infuriating consequences. O'Neil walks readers through anecdotes from the worlds of education, business, law enforcement, insurance, politics, and, of course, social media. She illustrates that time and again, the formulae designed to describe us become their own self-fulfilling prophecies, often in ways that marginalise the already disenfranchised. The book is well-written and a much-needed wake-up call as we cede more and more of our personal data both with and without knowing it to entities that use it in ways they never clearly tell us about. O'Neil writes with an obvious liberal bias, and I was disappointed that her solution was to look for ways to improve big data rather than retreating from our over-reliance on it, but otherwise, many of her conclusions are hard to argue with. At the same time, she teaches her readers that even the so-called "science" that seems so irrefutable is always worth a second glance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What happens when we place value in statistics that aren't always accurate? What happens when a group of people blindly accept these untested and opaque models as the foundation for their society? In search for a utopian society, Big Data promises to deliver us to a dystonian society where everything is for sale and we can expect as many false positives as positives. The consequences of this data economy are huge, it is responsible for many negative factors in our society such as inequality and the loss of our civil liberties. Man is stripped of his human nature and reduced to a scientific animal with human behaviorism, he is only capable and the extent of his environment. "Data over people" is the message of this book, the author puts forth many examples of how we've truly lost touch with reality. Even though these data models are known to be wrong, there is no feedback loop or agenda to fix them. We accept everything and question nothing, as a result our future looks bleak and terrible. Individuals that are out-of-touch with the world will be dictating the path the world goes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I wish this book were required reading for the human race. O'Neil does a masterful job of taking us through several issues and showing us how our reliance on Big Data - and our blind worship of anything that smacks of math and statistics - is hurting us. O'Neil starts the book with an example of teachers fired for poor performance, and how the school districts involved had no idea how the performance was being measured. They hired an outside firm to do it, and the model the outside firm used was a black box. It's such a scary idea - someone can get fired and no one - not even that person's boss - knows why, except that some third party said some 'score' they assigned the employee was bad. The school districts might as well flip a coin, for all the good such 'evaluation' of performance does for them.O'Neil then goes on to explain the sort of models that are used in Big Data, and how some of them are fine, and some of them are WMDs: Weapons of Math Destruction. She goes on to cover college admissions, online advertising, the criminal justice system, getting a job, job performance, applying for credit, and getting insurance - and she shows how there are models at play that take data and do really stupid things with it. More importantly, there is no feedback loop to these models, or the feedback loop is broken, so the models are never improved. Also, O'Neil shows how there can be a cascading effect: if one model does someone harm by, say, denying them credit, that can then have a negative impact in other areas of that person's life, like trying to get or keep a job. This is a very important book, and O'Neil does a really good job of making something potentially dull into a real page-turner. I highly recommend this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This cleverly-titled book seems to have been a direct response to the Occupy movement and is a very focused and well-argued overview of some of the decision algorithms that influence all aspects of society. Over the ten chapters of the book, O'Neil introduces us to different algorithms in ten areas of modern society and then slowly goes through how they were implemented and how they can be biased against certain groups. O'Neil does an excellent job translating the math into very understandable examples and walking the reader through how so many of these algorithms are used in different areas of modern society. The examples do seem slightly repetitive but her focus on pulling the cover back never wavers and provides something tangible for the reader to be frustrated about. Even though I thought I know about many of these algorithms, I definitely thought more about this issue such as why do I have to provide my SSN number to sign up for a cell phone. Hopefully with more people reading this we will be able to demand more transparency in these algorithms which could lead to a more just society.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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 immobility, credit traps, price gouging, and other nastiness done to poor people in the name of efficiency and profit. Luckily for the poor, these algorithms are also increasingly affecting middle class people in similar ways, as companies insinuate they way into people's driving habits, recreational choices, "wellness", psychological state, and political relevance.She calls for careful ethical consideration and assessment of these toxic algorithms, but I was left feeling that the political will to regulate these tools is unlikely to be there for us, especially as these tools are exceptionally helpful for businesses to maximize their profits at the expense of employees and customers alike. Add in her observations that many of the worst offenders either actively help the richest Americans or can be avoided by the application of a bit of money, and it's hard to see any hope of change until such time as some sufficiently horrible event occurs that affectis a broad enough range of people to force change. (Just kidding, obviously, as the 2008 financial crisis would have seemed like just the sort of thing to make the government punish offenders and regulate the financial industry, but that certainly didn't happen.)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book just wasn't for me, I think. I didn't finish it and it will be passed along to someone who can appreciate it more. I gave up at the halfway point. I liked the subject, just didn't like the writing style!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Finding a book authored by an Ivy League mathematician that is both interesting and relatable to non-mathematicians is always a nice surprise. The information O'Neil provides on often-unregulated data brokering and predictive software programs is fresh, crucial, and backed up by many examples of actual and potential problems (as well as assorted proposed solutions) for American consumers and business leaders of all types. Even if number crunching isn't your bag, I recommend reading it to gain awareness of new computational technology trends that directly impact your wallet--and your privacy--in invisible ways. Should definitely be on educator/criminal justice/finance major reading lists. I'd probably have rated it higher, but she lost a couple notches with me for obvious lapses in political impartiality in a book devoted to quantitative mathematical science.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A very important read. Eye opening!! I knew I was affected by some of this, but seeing how the war on the poor is reinforced by WMD's really opened my eyes. Highly recommended!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Cathy O'Neil's book is original and timely. No other book that I know of addresses the topic of the application of algorithms to our daily lives, and this topic will rapidly become more important as private and public entities at all levels utilize algorithms with increasing frequency to make decisions with little or no human input. Algorithms are mathematical models that apply a set of rules to data in order to help classify or make decisions about the data set. Taking decisions out of people's hands is ostensibly a good thing under many circumstances where prejudice has historically impeded advancement of specific groups within the American landscape. However O'Neil deftly describes some fundamental problems with the applied vs. theoretical algorithms. I would summarize this as a problem with scale, refinement, and suitability. O'Neil explains how algorithms can be used at the wrong scale, have ho feedback of outcomes in order to refine them, and/or are applied to data for which they were never designed to function. She does this through a series of anecdotes where the use of algorithms has had serious negative impacts on individuals or groups, and she puts a human face on the outliers - the people who have suffer when algorithms fail, when they always do for some portion of the data.Given her deep and varied background in data science, O'Neil has the expertise to address the algorithms at their constructive level, however, the reader may be left a bit wanting for a deeper explanation of exactly how the algorithms in question is flawed. I think readers will find this either relieving or frustrating. As a scientist, there were times when I wanted a deeper explanation of the nature of a particular algorithm's flaw, but this is a book of social commentary at its heart, and many readers will welcome the absence of the particulars. Due in part to O"Neil's clear writing, you do not need any mathematical background to read and understand the book. Essentially, O'Neil makes the argument that people are not pieces of data, and if they are treated as such (as they will increasingly be), then there will be serious human consequences. While I don't agree with every argument, it is an important book and one which I am glad to have read, and I recommend it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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 management who wields them in ways they don't understand. The solution is to have a balance of algorithm and humans, with semi-automated systems helping decision makers. This is already happening with some robo-trader products that are a mix of algo and human. Regardless this issue will continue to grow and likely lead to a backlash at some point in the future as we continue to work out how to integrate computers safely into society.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    upsetting, not surprising.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very timely book. Cathy, once a data analyst for D.E. Shaw, illuminates the inhumane direction of humanity through algorithms. These algorithms separate class and race amongst other things. Education, auto insurance, Facebook is all under scrutiny for their manipulation of the unaware public.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    O'Neil takes us on a journey through life, and explains how big data, although useful in many capacities, can be detrimental to the lives of many people such as low income, minorities, and the mentally ill. A main take away is that for big data models to be successful there needs to be continuous "smart" evolution of models using data gathered overtime, and an acknowledgment that there can be harm done to some segments of the population. This was well worth the read, and something I would suggest to those interested in the implications of big data on society.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Although this book focuses on math, models and algorithms, Cathy O'Neill manages to bypass all of the technical jargon and explain how these models work in plain English. O'Neill's key point are that many of these models, such as evaluating teacher performance by using test scores, software used to determine which resumes to look at for a job, and models designed to predict where crime will happen are unfair. She uses that term a lot, but she makes a compelling argument to back it up. Her main points are that certain models (but not all) have the ability to devastate and discriminate against a whole section of people, ad are currently doing so. The models that do this she calls Weapons of Math Destruction or WMDs. WMDs have three key components that make them dangerous, and without any one of them, they wouldn't be. These three characteristics are: Opacity on how the models makes determinations/what factors are included, Scale (only software that can affect a large number of people are WMDs), and lastly, these models have no feedback loop for errors. To clarify that last point, these models don't know when they've got it wrong. There is no way for it to know if a teacher it recommended get fired was actually a good teacher that eventually became principal at his or her new school and improved student success. There is no way for it to know if a person whose resume they weeded out would have taken the company into new directions. As she says on page 133, "The system has no inkling that it got one person, or even a thousand people entirely wrong." There simply isn't a way for the model to know that it's gotten it wrong, and rethink things. O'Neill spends most of the book going into detail about many different models and their unfairness. Part of the problems is that in our society's effort to create models to predict behavior, we use proxies so that we can manipulate the numbers, but proxies can never represent the real thing because life is complicated and cannot be boiled down to a set of numbers. Often these proxies help misrepresent the truth and in the case of most of these models, the ones who suffer are often those who are poor because the data that can be gathered on them doesn't read well: credit scores, zip codes, education, etc. None of these data points however, can tell you if they're trying to put their life back together but circumstances have been cruel, and so a large population of underserved people are now underserved by software. As she says on page 204, "Big Data processes codify the past. They do not invent the future." When a algorithm reinforces the past, it reinforces all of the things that come along with it, including the racism and, the classism and spits that back out. O'Neill only stops to tell us how to fix this problem in the conclusion. After promising for the whole book to talk about how to fix this problem, it's only in the last twenty pages that she gets down to her proposed solutions. While her solutions seem good, they didn't seem as well researched as the rest of the book, and I felt rushed between one solution to the next. The only solution that seemed like it might actually work was the one that the EU implemented, only because it had actually been done before. If O'Neill had spent as much time researching and writing about her solutions as she did on even a fourth of the book, it would be a much better book, but instead it feels a little one-sided, without much of an idea on how to change this and move forward, much like some of the models she discusses. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cathy O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction explores how the use of data mining and "neutral" algorithms wind up having a much larger impact on our lives than we might suspect. O'Neil covers a variety of subjects, including employment, advertising, political engagement, and consumer credit, demonstrating how businesses use complex mathematical systems to pad their bottom line without addressing real and pervasive discrimination.As much commentary as explanation, O'Neil is particularly interested in how these algorithms create and sustain feedback loops which perpetuate the very stereotypes and discriminatory practices they were meant to alleviate.Weapons of Math Destruction does not require an understanding of advanced math, and O'Neil does a good job of explaining the underlying principals without relying on jargon. I would recommend it to anyone interested in how technological systems are playing an increasing -- and invisible role -- in shaping our society.N.B.: I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shines a light into the world of big data and all the biases that are built into the algorithms that affect us on a daily basis. O'Neil is very well informed and presents a balanced case of how AI can often make our lives easier and create more efficiencies, but also how many systems fail to self-correct for incorrect predictions/modeling. A must read or any data scientist.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Changed my mind in respect to various number crunching instances, especially in cases where bias is baked into the institution developing the algorithms.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very interesting book on how computer forecasting or algorithms are controlling our lives (big data).
    Especially impactful is how degree mills or private colleges prey on the poor. Computers aren't always right ! Skimmed parts.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    O'Neil is a very good writer and explains how computerized mathematical models are used in ways that harm the poor and powerless. It's obvious that she's a genius when it comes to math and statistics, but sometimes her politics seem a little too idealistic for my taste.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book by Cathy O'Neil is excellent. Our society has changed dramatically over the last few decades, yet many of us are unaware of what is happening. The changes are widespread and dramatic, yet they sneak into our lives. But this book is not just about social media. It is a commentary on how corporations, governments, and agencies use algorithms to separate us into categories. Often, the algorithms are imperfect, yet the effect of these mathematical constructs is catastrophic for millions. She has devoted each chapter to a different case: healthcare, banking, performance appraisal, etc. Do we have a way out? I don't know. Yet, if we are aware of the dangers, we may be better prepared to face life's changing challenges. The book is excellent.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting introduction to the science and politics of big data by a mathematician who was on the front lines of the 2008 crash.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A very timely, detailed, and expert (yet highly readable) look at the damaging potentials of using algorithms to regulate our lives. This absolutely relevant book is a must-read for anyone involved in data science or simply algorithm users.
    Using a clear definition of what constitutes WMDs, (opacity, negative feedback loops, no absence of feedback, they tend to punish the poor, model = black box). O'Neil goes through a wide range of social institutions (health, education, work, politics, criminal justice, to name a few) and examines the damages done by WMDs. My own personal distaste for work wellness stuff felt very validated.
    In the end, O'Neil offers suggestions as to what can be done to "tame" WMDs and reduce their damage (including trading some efficiency for fairness), or better, use the same techniques made available thanks to Big Data for socially productive purposes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The dangers of surrendering to algorithms

    A thorough, provocative and readable accounting of the way WMDs (Weapons of Math Destruction) seek out and produce discrimination in the guise of being impartial. Information used as proxies for one kind of behavior can falsely label individuals on the basis of income, race, and other factors that have nothing to do with the behavior—and as a result can work to produce the inequality and bias they are supposed to circumvent. In other words, math is not only not impartial, it is profoundly prejudicial depending on how it’s used. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    One of the funniest bits of Little Britain was where David Walliams as Carol Beer would type a request into the computer, before turning to the customer and saying ‘Computer says no’… Whilst it is funny, it is not so funny when it happens to you. In this book, O’Neil, a former Wall Street quant raises alarm bells on the way that these mathematical models have infiltrated our lives. We don’t see them, but these algorithms that help us with our searches online and finding books, films and other items on online sites are now being used to determine just how much of a risk you are. Next time you want a loan, to renew insurance or just need to get another job O’Neil thinks that some of us may have a problem.

    She calls them ‘Weapons of Maths Destruction’; these are incontestable, unregulated and opaque algorithms. They are being used by companies to decide the tiniest details. They are used because they make larger profits for corporations and most worryingly for us is that they are frequently conclude the wrong thing having made incorrect assumptions about individuals. As the saying goes ‘crap in; crap out’…

    Having worried the life out of the reader, O’Neil goes onto suggest a variety of things that could help; more regulation, better design of the code and us being aware of their use. The writing is clear, if a little dry and technical at times. The examples are a little American centric, but you can see the way that it is going in the UK. Even though the title mentions the dreaded word maths, it really isn’t that mathematical. Worthwhile reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although I do not disagree with the content, it is a bit of a ramble and repetitive.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Author seems very wise and caring for the people of America. I was suspicious of many things involving math and data and now I understand some of the goods and bads of data mining and use.