num_pages: 259
description: We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly the decisions that affect our lives--where we go to school whether we can get a job or a loan how much we pay for health insurance--are being made not by humans but by machines. In theory this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules.But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil reveals the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable even when they're wrong. Most troubling they reinforce discrimination--propping up the lucky punishing the downtrodden and undermining our democracy in the process.
language: English
title: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
publisher: Crown