Download Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy AudioBook Free
A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the numerical models that pervade modern life - and threaten to rip aside our social cloth We are in the age of the algorithm. Progressively the decisions that impact our lives - where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we purchase health insurance - are being made not by humans but by numerical models. Theoretically this will lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is taken out. But as Cathy O'Neil discloses in this immediate and necessary booklet, the opposite holds true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable even though they're wrong. Most troublingly, they strengthen discrimination: If a poor student can't get financing because a financing model deems him too dangerous (by virtue of his zip code), he's then take off from the sort of education which could move 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 someone's life, O'Neil exposes the black-box models that condition our future, both as individuals and as a population. These "weapons of mathematics destruction" score educators and students, kind rétotalés, give (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, goal voters, established paroles, and keep an eye on our health. O'Neil calls on modelers to adopt more responsibility because of their algorithms and on coverage makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become savvier about the models that govern our lives. This important booklet empowers us to ask the rough questions, uncover the reality, and demand change.
