Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Author: Cathy O'Neil
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 259
ISBN: 9780553418811
Language: English
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: September 06, 2016
We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives--where we go to school, whether we can get a job or a loan, how much we pay for health insurance--are being made not by humans, but by machines. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules.
But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil reveals, the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination--propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process.
