Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy Paperback

Algorithms that decide who gets a loan, a job interview or a prison sentence are rarely open to inspection, and Cathy O'Neil argues that secrecy is the heart of the problem. Drawing on a background in mathematics and quantitative finance, she examines scoring systems used in teaching evaluations, university rankings, insurance, advertising, policing and recruitment, and sets out three warning signs to watch for: scale, opacity and damage. Each case shows how a model built on rough proxies can entrench the very inequality it claims to measure. This Penguin paperback runs to 272 pages. Reasons to pick it up: • Case studies from education, policing, credit and recruitment • Three criteria for identifying a harmful predictive model • Written by a mathematician with experience in quantitative finance • A 272-page Penguin paperback For readers following data ethics, technology policy and inequality, published by Penguin and stocked at Boipoka.