Weapons of Math Destruction
How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
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Weapons of Math Destruction
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Narrated by:
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Cathy O'Neil
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By:
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Cathy O'Neil
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
In this New York Times best seller, Cathy O'Neil, one of the first champions of algorithmic accountability, sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life—and threaten to rip apart our social fabric.
We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules and bias is eliminated.
And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination. Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These 'weapons of math destruction' score teachers and students, sort CVs, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, target voters and monitor our health.
O'Neil calls on modellers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth and demand change.
©2022 Cathy O'Neil (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- Human Capital and the Making of Millennials
- By: Malcolm Harris
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 248
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 201
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 202
Everyone knows "what's wrong with millennials". Glenn Beck says we've been ruined by "participation trophies". Simon Sinek says we have low self-esteem. An Australian millionaire says millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This millennial is here to prove them all wrong.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A devastating dream of revolution
- By Kevin Tierney Jr on 11-23-17
By: Malcolm Harris
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The Up Side of Down
- Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success
- By: Megan McArdle
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 233
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Story4 out of 5 stars 235
Most new products fail. So do most small businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. So what determines who will bounce back and follow up with a home run? If you want to succeed in business and in life, Megan McArdle argues in this hugely thought-provoking book, you have to learn how to harness the power of failure. McArdle has been one of our most popular business bloggers for more than a decade, covering the rise and fall of some the world' s top companies and challenging us to think differently about how we live, learn, and work.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good Book
- By Ray on 05-21-14
By: Megan McArdle
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The Why Axis
- Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life
- By: Uri Gneezy, John A. List
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4 out of 5 stars 79
Uri Gneezy and John List are like the anthropologists who spend months in the field studying the people in their native habitats. But in their case they embed themselves in our messy world to try and solve big, difficult problems, such as the gap between rich and poor students and the violence plaguing inner city schools; the real reasons people discriminate; whether women are really less competitive than men; and how to correctly price products and services. Their field experiments show how economic incentives can change outcomes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Some Interesting Insights But Poor Science
- By Harold Toomey on 06-09-23
By: Uri Gneezy, and others
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The Complacent Class
- The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
- By: Tyler Cowen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 299
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 254
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Story4 out of 5 stars 253
Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs. The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist, and best-selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition - we're working harder than ever to avoid change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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MUST READ
- By RJW on 05-06-17
By: Tyler Cowen
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AI Superpowers
- China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
- By: Kai-Fu Lee
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,338
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,669
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,667
In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Compelled to listen at 2x speed
- By LEE on 09-26-18
By: Kai-Fu Lee
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That Used to Be Us
- How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
- By: Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 602
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 493
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Story4 out of 5 stars 486
America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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We have met the enemy and it is us.... Pogo
- By Soudant on 09-16-11
By: Thomas L. Friedman, and others
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Third World America
- How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
- By: Arianna Huffington
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation - that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - an American Nightmare of our own making.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sad... but with a ray of hope
- By Maciej on 10-20-10
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The World Is Flat
- Further Updated and Expanded
- By: Thomas L. Friedman
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 981
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 546
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Story4 out of 5 stars 544
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
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Data-ism
- The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else
- By: Steve Lohr
- Narrated by: Steve Lohr
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4 out of 5 stars 97
Coal, iron ore, and oil were the key productive assets that fueled the Industrial Revolution. Today data is the vital raw material of the information economy. The explosive abundance of this digital asset, more than doubling every two years, is creating a new world of opportunity and challenge. Data-ism is about this next phase, in which vast, Internet-scale data sets are used for discovery and prediction in virtually every field. It is a journey across this emerging world with people, illuminating narrative examples, and insights.
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4 out of 5 stars
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More business case than serious analysis
- By Godfried Gubbels on 06-03-15
By: Steve Lohr
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Phishing for Phools
- The Economics of Manipulation and Deception
- By: George A. Akerlof, Robert J. Shiller
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 349
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 300
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Story4 out of 5 stars 299
Ever since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand. In Phishing for Phools, Nobel Prize-winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller deliver a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, sellers will systematically exploit our psychological weaknesses and our ignorance through manipulation and deception.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Useful for a certain audience, but ...
- By Philo on 02-29-16
By: George A. Akerlof, and others
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Success and Luck
- Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy
- By: Robert H. Frank
- Narrated by: Robert H. Frank
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 218
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4 out of 5 stars 182
How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not what is advertised
- By Andre on 04-18-17
By: Robert H. Frank
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Machine, Platform, Crowd
- Harnessing Our Digital Future
- By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,199
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,006
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,001
In The Second Machine Age, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson predicted some of the far-reaching effects of digital technologies on our lives and businesses. Now they’ve written a guide to help listeners make the most of our collective future. Machine | Platform | Crowd outlines the opportunities and challenges inherent in the science fiction technologies that have come to life in recent years, like self-driving cars and 3D printers, online platforms for renting outfits and scheduling workouts, or crowd-sourced medical research and financial instruments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Both How AND Why for Techies
- By Dan Collins on 08-11-17
By: Erik Brynjolfsson, and others
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Automating Inequality
- How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
- By: Virginia Eubanks
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, politics, health, and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding, Through, Well Researched Book!
- By LISA on 07-11-24
By: Virginia Eubanks
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System Error
- Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot
- By: Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami, Jeremy M. Weinstein
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
In no more than the blink of an eye, a naïve optimism about technology’s liberating potential has given way to a dystopian obsession with biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. System Error exposes the root of our current predicament - how big tech’s relentless focus on optimization is driving a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes the information we get- and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent on tech. Weak on political speech.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-05-21
By: Rob Reich, and others
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Technically Wrong
- Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
- By: Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Narrated by: Andrea Emmes
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 137
Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pretty good but not complete
- By Casey on 10-29-17
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 309
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4 out of 5 stars 251
In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
What listeners say about Weapons of Math Destruction
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- "peter_herder"
- 06-12-24
Great but room for follow-up
It‘s very interesting.
Recording is great and performance makes it obvious why it‘s good for the author to read their own works: because they understand it best.
Only small caveat for me is that it mainly highlights the societal repercussions, of WMDs. I was hoping for a bit more detail in the technicalities.
Maybe an idea for a follow-up book….
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