'Weapons of math destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy'. This book, by Cathy O’Neil is about the dark side of Big Data. How it can end up punishing the poor and the oppressed in our society, while making the rich richer. This book is intended to focus sharply on the damage inflicted by such companies (WMDs) and the injustice they perpetuate.
Appropriately titled Bomb Parts, the beginning chapter of the book explain the three elements of a WMD: Opacity, Scale, and Damage, with an example of how data can be used to augment or destroy the fun we enjoy with our favorite sport. Next few chapters present various methods of manipulating such data to meet the ends of powerful players in this field. How, as technology advances, we are all being subjected to a digital form of stop and frisk, our faces matched against databases of interest. Or, how automatic systems judge us when we seek jobs and evaluate us based on certain data. How this affects recruiting, and laying off, policies.
Further chapters examine the impact WMD is making on the lives of common people. How the free expression of one's choice is affected, as far as the process of elections go. How public policy imitiatives are costantly hijacked in favour of powerful lobbies. How it can be made cause extensive shake up in important areas, like the industrial sphere, health management, etc.
Author highlights the distortion, WMDs are causing in our midst. Influencing higher education, drive up debt, spur mass incarceration, pummel the poor at nearly every juncture, and undermine democracy, are only some of the ills. 'It might seem like the logical response is to disarm these weapons, one by one', and I tend to agree with the author.
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