If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the daily data on the coronavirus pandemic, seeking glimmers of hope in the trajectories: the infected, the hospitalized, the intubated, the dead.
If only there were more understanding to be had. The more I look at the numbers, the more I see their flaws. Here are my top 10.
CEO Cathy O’Neil’s letter was read into the record of the House Committee on Financial Services hearing “Equitable Algorithms: Examining Ways to Reduce AI Bias in Financial Services.” The hearing page is linked; the full text of the letter is here.
In WNYC’s On the Media with Brooke Gladstone on November 22, 2019, mathematician and former Wall Street quant, Cathy O'Neil wants us to question our unexamined faith in predictive algorithms.
The book Weapons of Math Destruction, by Cathy O’Neil, an ex-Wall Street quant, describes many situations where proxies have helped create horribly biased and unfair automated systems, not just in finance, but also in education, criminal justice, and healthcare.
In this interview Cathy O’Neil covers a variety of interesting topics such as: Cathy’s path to and love of Math; Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism and why we don’t count the dead With God On Our Side; how and why she became a hedge-fund quant; trusting and fearing the authority of math; why her book is titled Weapons of Math Destruction
Cathy O’Neil explains to Strategic Insight Group CEO Dee Smith why she is auditing companies’ algorithms. O’Neil says it began when she moved from academia to trading during the financial crisis and realized the financial world couldn’t control their algorithms. Now she has turned to corporations more generally, where she believes algorithms have become dangerous “black boxes.” Her view: business leaders need rigorous methodology and tools or they will face catastrophic results that lead to litigation and serious reputational risks.
ORCAA is a consulting company that helps companies and organizations manage and audit their algorithmic risks.
