The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and incontestable, even when they're wrong. This book is wise, fierce, and desperately necessary -- Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not To Be Wrong Weapons of Math Destruction is a fantastic, plainspoken call to arms. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives - where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance - are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard and taught at Barnard College before moving to the private sector, where she worked for the hedge fund D. E. Shaw. Try again. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination—propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process. A important warning on the dark side of data. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 December 2019. Our excellent value books literally don't cost the earth, Every used book bought is one saved from landfill, Fascinating and deeply disturbing -- Yuval Noah Harari * Guardian Books of the Year *, Cathy O'Neil is a data scientist and author of the blog mathbabe.org. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 June 2019. [It] pithily exposes flaws in how information is used to assess everything from creditworthiness to policing tactics…. No elements found. Please try again later. Fascinating and deeply disturbing -- Yuval Noah Harari, Cathy O'Neil is a data scientist and author of the blog mathbabe.org. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power…, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. The author wears her political views heavily and (although I'm sympathetic to most of them) they distort her analysis and narrative to point which makes this reader mistrust her conclusions. Her analysis is superb, her writing is enticing, and her findings are unsettling.”—danah boyd, founder of Data & Society and author of It’s Complicated “From getting a job to finding a spouse, predictive algorithms are silently shaping and controlling our destinies. 1901 Words 8 Pages. We live in the age of the algorithm. It’s an important perspective on how data can be misused and offers ideas on how we need to adapt our control & culture in an increasing data driven world. . With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time. Buy this product and stream 90 days of Amazon Music Unlimited for free. That’s why the catalogue of case studies in O’Neil’s book are so important; she’s telling us where to look.”—The Guardian“O’Neil is passionate about exposing the harmful effects of Big Data–driven mathematical models (what she calls WMDs), and she’s uniquely qualified for the task… [She] makes a convincing case that many mathematical models today are engineered to benefit the powerful at the expense of the powerless… [and] has written an entertaining and timely book that gives readers the tools to cut through the ideological fog obscuring the dangers of the Big Data revolution.”—In These Times“In this simultaneously illuminating and disturbing account, [O’Neil] describes the many ways in which widely used mathematic models—based on ‘prejudice, misunderstanding, and bias’—tend to punish the poor and reward the rich… She convincingly argues for both more responsible modeling and federal regulation. I read until the end of the first case ( teacher got fired because of poorly performing kids). An unusually lucid and readable look at the daunting algorithms that govern so many aspects of our lives.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred) “Even as a professional mathematician, I had no idea how insidious Big Data could be until I read Weapons of Math Destruction. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, Choose from over 13,000 locations across the UK, Prime members get unlimited deliveries at no additional cost, Dispatch to this address when you check out. In her new book, Weapons of Math Destruction, data scientist Cathy O’Neil discusses example after example of algorithms that make troublingly unfair decisions. This book is wise, fierce, and desperately necessary -- Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not To Be Wrong Weapons of Math Destruction is a fantastic, plainspoken call to arms. This is an easy to read book with a raft of real world examples across a range of industries from education, finance to ecommerse on where data has been mis-used and negatively impacted customers and employees. In this New York Times bestseller, Cathy O'Neil, one of the first champions of algorithmic accountability, sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life -- and threaten to rip apart our social fabric. By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. It reads somewhat like an extended NYT think piece, which is a fine style for a Sunday newspaper article but I expected quite a bit more detail in a long form work. These "weapons of math destruction" score teachers and students, sort CVs, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, target voters, and monitor our health. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former Wall Street quant sounds the alarm on Big Data and the mathematical models that threaten to rip apart our social fabric—with a new afterword “A manual for the twenty-first-century citizen . Becoming Numbers No one thinks that they have an impact on the world. Weapons of Math Destruction opens the curtain on algorithms that exploit people and distort the truth while posing as neutral mathematical tools. It is short and easy to read. Buy, Sep 06, 2016 O’Neil’s writing is direct and easy to read—I devoured it in an afternoon.”—Scientific American“Readable and engaging… succinct and cogent… Weapons of Math Destruction is The Jungle of our age… [It] should be required reading for all data scientists and for any organizational decision-maker convinced that a mathematical model can replace human judgment.”—Mark Van Hollebeke, Data and Society: Points“Indispensable… Despite the technical complexity of its subject, Weapons of Math Destruction lucidly guides readers through these complex modeling systems… O’Neil’s book is an excellent primer on the ethical and moral risks of Big Data and an algorithmically dependent world… For those curious about how Big Data can help them and their businesses, or how it has been reshaping the world around them, Weapons of Math Destruction is an essential starting place.”—National Post“Cathy O’Neil has seen Big Data from the inside, and the picture isn’t pretty. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. If you don’t want these algorithms to become your masters, read Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil to deconstruct the latest growing tyranny of an arrogant establishment.”—Ralph Nader, author of Unsafe at Any Speed “In this fascinating account, Cathy O’Neil leverages her expertise in mathematics and her passion for social justice to poke holes in the triumphant narrative of Big Data. WMD is a well-known book by now, and I have been meanin to read it for some time. There's a problem loading this menu at the moment. relevant and urgent.”—Financial Times NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Boston Globe • Wired • Fortune • Kirkus Reviews • The Guardian • Nature • On Point We live in the age of the algorithm. Cathy's experience in this and other Big Data and Data Scientist roles helps to give her message credance. 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. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. While I somewhat agree with O'Neil's point of view the level detail and the depth to which her arguments are developed seemed somewhat cursory. She then worked as a data scientist at various start-ups, building models that predict people's purchases and clicks. 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. There’s a little Philip K. Dick, a little Orwell, a little Kafka in her portrait of powerful bureaucracies ceding control of the most intimate decisions of our lives to hyper-empowered computer models riddled with all of our unresolved, atavistic human biases.”—Paris Review “Through harrowing real-world examples and lively story-telling, Weapons of Math Destruction shines invaluable light on the invisible algorithms and complex mathematical models used by government and big business to undermine equality and increase private power.