Longlisted for the National Book Award

New York Situations Bestseller

A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm over the mathematical choices that pervade contemporary lifestyle – and threaten to rip apart our sociable fabric

We reside in the age of the algorithm. Progressively, the decisions that influence our lives-where we go to school, whether we get yourself a car loan, how much we purchase health insurance-are getting made not by human beings, but by numerical models. Theoretically, this should result in higher fairness: about Weaponry of Math Damage: How Big Data Raises Inequality and Threatens Democracy Everyone is judged according to the same guidelines, and bias can be eliminated.

But as Cathy O’Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The versions used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If an unhealthy student can’t get yourself a loan because a lending model deems him as well risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then take off from the kind of education that could draw him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Versions are propping in the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark aspect of Big Data.

Tracing the arc of the person’s life, O’Neil exposes the black colored box types that form our future, both as individuals and as a society. These “weapons of math damage” score instructors and students, kind réamountés, grant (or deny) loans, assess workers, target voters, arranged parole, and monitor our health.

O’Neil phone calls on modelers to take more responsibility for his or her algorithms and on plan makers to modify their use. But in the finish, it’s up to us to be more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This essential reserve empowers us to request the tough questions, uncover the reality, and demand modification.

– Longlist for Country wide Book Award (nonfiction)

– Goodreads, semi-finalist for the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards (Technology and Technology)

– Kirkus, Ideal Books of 2016

– New York Situations, 100 Well known Books of 2016 (Non-Fiction)

– The Guardian, Ideal Books of 2016

– WBUR’s ‘On Stage,’ Ideal Books of 2016: Staff Picks

– Boston Globe, Best Books of 2016, Non-Fiction