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

Review by Valérie Suhr

In her book, which has become a bestseller, the US mathematician Cathy O’Neil shows the dangers of “big data” and algorithms in an impressive and vivid way. These are by no means trivial, but in extreme cases even capable of shaking the foundations of statehood. The author’s thesis: “Big Data” promotes existing inequalities instead of reducing them and is even capable of threatening democracy. The enormous risk is already made clear by the ingenious play on words in the title: “Big Data” as “weapons of maths destruction”, i.e. as a kind of mathematical weapon of mass destruction.

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