Weapons of Math Destruction

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Weapons of Math Destruction

Longlisted for the National Book Award
New York Times Bestseller

A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern lifeÂ â€” and threaten to rip apart our social fabric

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our livesâ€”where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insuranceâ€”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 Oâ€™Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when theyâ€™re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student canâ€™t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), heâ€™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 â€œtoxic cocktail for democracy.â€ Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.

Tracing the arc of a personâ€™s life, Oâ€™Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These â€œweapons of math destructionâ€ score teachers and students, sort rÃ©sumÃ©s, grant (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, target voters, set parole, and monitor our health.

Oâ€™Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, itâ€™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.

Country	USA
Author	Cathy O'Neil
Binding	Paperback
Brand	imusti
EAN	9780241296813
Feature	ALLEN LANE
ISBN	0241296811
Label	Allen Lane
Manufacturer	Allen Lane
NumberOfItems	1
PublicationDate	2016-09-06
Publisher	Allen Lane
Studio	Allen Lane
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Weapons of Math Destruction

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