Weapons of Math Destruction : : how big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Locations
Call Number: 005.7 O'N, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Politics / O'Neil, Cathy
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	005.7 O'N	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Politics / O'Neil, Cathy	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Politics / O'Neil, Cathy	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Bomb parts : what is a model? -- Shell shocked : my journey of disillusionment -- Arms race : going to college -- Propaganda machine : online advertising -- Civilian casualties : justice in the age of big data -- Ineligible to serve : getting a job -- Sweating bullets : on the job -- Collateral damage : landing credit -- No safe zone : getting insurance -- The targeted citizen : civic life.
"A former Wall Street quantitative analyst sounds an alarm on mathematical modeling, a pervasive new force in society that threatens to undermine democracy and widen inequality,"--NoveList.
"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 book, 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 book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change."--Dust jacket.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Would recommend submitted by skylaturner on June 21, 2019, 10:40am I enjoyed this book for the perspective it gave on common algorithms we interact with everyday in our social media, universities, and even the ones we don't see. The research studies the author uses to illustrate her points are already well known so if you're already interested in this topic you probably won't learn anything from that itself, but the categories she uses to define the WMDs as she calls them lets you see that research in a new light. She writes in a way that is accessible and easy to read so I would recommend this book.

Interesting perspective on topics taken for granted submitted by shoelaces on August 18, 2019, 9:54pm "Many WMDs ... define their own reality and use it to justify their results."

O'Neil's background in mathematics, statistics, and data science shed an interesting spotlight in how algorithms in several different contexts can be harmful if left unchecked. She briefly introduces fairly technical topics and gives specific examples of how the use of mathematical models have created undesired consequences. The material is presented in a way that readers with some background knowledge in the area would be able to follow along, but for those who might not be familiar at all, there could be a bit of jargon to sift through. There were several takeaways from this book, but one that particularly resonated with me is that when algorithms are dependent on information that is subjected to human presumptions and opinions, then the algorithm will most certainly be skewed in the same way. And just because the calculations are being done by a computer and not a human mind doesn't mean the outcome will be completely unbiased.

When someone tells you that "algorithms cannot be racist"... submitted by avandeusen on July 17, 2021, 10:46am ...tell them to pick up this book. Reading this book would be helpful for most anyone to see how our world is evolving.