Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.25 (634 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0553418831 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-12-26 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
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. If you work with data, or just produce reams of it online, this is a must-read.”—ArsTechnica“Lucid, alarming, and valuable… O’Neil’s writing is crisp and precise as she aims her arguments to a lay audience. That’s why the catalogue of case studies in O’Neil’s book are so important; she’s te
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 re
Shaw. She then worked as a data scientist at various start-ups, building models that predict people’s purchases and clicks. E. She earned a Ph.D. Cathy O'Neil is a data scientist and author of the blog mathbabe. in mathematics from Harvard and taught at Barnard College before moving to the private sector, where she worked for the hed
Stop Using Math as a Weapon Amazon Customer So here you are on Amazon's web page, reading about Cathy O'Neil's new book, Weapons of Math Destruction. Amazon hopes you buy the book (and so do I, it's great!). But Amazon also hopes it can sell you some other books while you're here. That's why, in a prominent place on the page, you see a section entitled:Customers Who Bought This Item Also BoughtThis section is Amazon's way of using what it knows -- which book you're looking at, and sales data collected across all its customers -- to recommend other books that you might be interest. "They back up their analysis with reams of statistics, which give them the studied air of evenhanded science." CodeMaster Talon I struggled with the star rating for this book. There are certainly aspects of the work that merit five stars. And it is VERY thought-provoking, like a good book should be. But there are flaws, significant ones, with the biggest flaw being a glaring over-simplification of many of the systems that O'Neil decries in the book. I don't know if O'Neil has personally ever had to take a psychology test to get a job, worked under the Kronos scheduling system, lived in a neighborhood with increased police presence due to crime rates, been victim. "WMD offered insights into some of the threats posed by Big Data" according to Tim. The book looks at the black box algorithms and their misuses. It starts strong, but becomes a repeat of the same story line in late chapters. It definitely gave background of the dangers of Big Data in a number of industries, and painted the grim picture of how this is impacting society today.I am a high school statistics teacher and this afforded me the opportunity to engage my students in discussions of ethics related to many situations found in this book.It was an enjoyable, if disturbing, read.