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  • Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil book cover
  • Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil book cover
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Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

by Cathy O'Neil

The stakes behind algorithmic decisions

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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    National Book Award longlist

    Longlisted for the National Book Award.

  • Bestseller

    New York Times bestseller

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  • Editorial selection

    The New York Times Book Review — one of the best books of the year

    Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review.

AlbakiReads Editorial

The stakes behind algorithmic decisions

Cathy O’Neil examines how mathematical models and large-scale data shape consequential decisions, including access to education, employment, loans, and health insurance. The book challenges the expectation that applying the same rules to everyone automatically produces fair outcomes. O’Neil argues that models can be opaque and difficult to contest, and that their use may reinforce discrimination and deepen existing inequalities. By connecting automated decision-making to public policy and democracy, the book frames algorithms not simply as technical tools but as systems with social consequences.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in the social and political effects of data and algorithms
  • Readers exploring discrimination, inequality, and public policy
  • Readers concerned with automated decisions in areas such as hiring, lending, and education

Themes

Big data and algorithmic decision-makingDiscrimination and inequalityPublic policy and democracy

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Book overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A former Wall Street quant sounds the alarm on Big Data and the mathematical models that threaten to rip apart our social fabric--with a new afterword

"A manual for the twenty-first-century citizen . . . relevant and urgent."--Financial Times

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - The Boston Globe - Wired - Fortune - Kirkus Reviews - The Guardian - Nature - On Point

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. Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.
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