E24: Cathy O'Neil's Weapons Of Math Destruction Reviewed

Random Talkers

This week we review "Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy" by Cathy O'Neil. From terrible teacher evaluations to dodgy credit decisions, algorithms make plenty of mistakes - but are they really worse than the alternative? Timestamps: 0:23 - Three traits of a bad model 1:48 - Terrible teacher evaluations 6:50 - Personality tests and hiring 11:50 - Bad algorithms disproportionately hurt the poor 15:45 - Clopening and schedule optimization 18:19 - Life before algorithms: redlining 25:11 - Limits to model accuracy 26:21 - The rigor of sports analytics is not a panacea 28:07 - Predictions vs. privacy 32:37 - The stop and frisk analogy 35:35 - China's social credit system and research ethics Check out Random Talkers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RandomTalkers Consider buying us a coffee (all donations go to better mics): https://www.buymeacoffee.com/randomtalkers