A Book Review - Weapons of Math Destruction Book by Cathy O'Neil

O'Neil, a mathematician, analyses how the use of big data and algorithms in a variety of fields, including insurance, advertising, education, and policing, can lead to decisions that harm the poor, reinforce racism, and amplify inequality. According to National Book Foundation. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’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 “toxic cocktail for democracy.” She posits that these problematic mathematical tools share three key features: they are opaque, unregulated and difficult to contest, and at the same time scalable, thereby amplifying any inherent biases to affect increasingly larger populations.