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" There’s a paradox here. If we return one last time to that ’50s-era banker, we see that his mind was occupied with human distortions—desires, prejudice, distrust of outsiders. To carry out the job more fairly and efficiently, he and the rest of his industry handed the work over to an algorithm. Sixty years later, the world is dominated by automatic systems chomping away on our error-ridden dossiers. They urgently require the context, common sense, and fairness that only humans can provide. However, if we leave this issue to the marketplace, which prizes efficiency, growth, and cash flow (while tolerating a certain degree of errors), meddling humans will be instructed to stand clear of the machinery. "

Cathy O'Neil , Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy


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Cathy O'Neil quote : There’s a paradox here. If we return one last time to that ’50s-era banker, we see that his mind was occupied with human distortions—desires, prejudice, distrust of outsiders. To carry out the job more fairly and efficiently, he and the rest of his industry handed the work over to an algorithm. Sixty years later, the world is dominated by automatic systems chomping away on our error-ridden dossiers. They urgently require the context, common sense, and fairness that only humans can provide. However, if we leave this issue to the marketplace, which prizes efficiency, growth, and cash flow (while tolerating a certain degree of errors), meddling humans will be instructed to stand clear of the machinery.