Weapons of Math Destruction

In *Weapons of Math Destruction*, Cathy O’Neil pulls back the curtain on algorithmic tyranny with razor-sharp clarity. 

Her “WMDs” are big data models that are opaque, scalable, and destructive, supercharge inequality. She skewers rigged teacher evaluations that fire good educators, predatory ads that trap the poor in debt cycles, and recidivism scores that jail people for poverty, not crime. O’Neil, a former Wall Street quant, writes with insider fury and storyteller flair, making math feel like a thriller. It’s a must-read for anyone who votes, works, or breathes in the digital age.

AI absolutely inherits these sins, amplified. Today’s neural nets are blacker boxes than ever, trained on internet-scale bias—racist hiring filters, sexist credit models, and surveillance systems that profile by zip code. Without mandatory audits, diverse data, or human override loops, they scale prejudice globally in milliseconds. Add profit-driven deployment and regulatory lag, and we’re sleepwalking into a dystopia O’Neil warned about. 

The fix? Embed fairness by design, open the code, keep "human in the lopp" processes and give affected communities veto power—before the next WMD detonates.