A review by kstring
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil
3.0
This book is SO repetitive. Listen: I got the message after Chapter 1, no need to write a whole book. If I wasn't reading for a class, I might have stopped after Chapter 3. Granted, keeping these ideas in mind while coding up machine learning algorithms is very important so hearing case studies was helpful for me. Some of the stories were interesting to hear though because I never heard about them in the news and I didn't realize how many determining processes we run by algorithm these days. However, I would like if she presented more solutions to these problems rather than discuss the problems themselves; at one point it sounds like O'Neil wished she could go around and solve all these problems herself, but what if I want to help her? How would I do that? What are things the average consumer can do to fight back?
The biggest thing that bothered me with this book was how she kept saying "We'll talk about this later", even when there was only 30 minutes left in the audiobook!
I can't decide a genre for this book. Is it vent sesh? A social commentary? A biography? The beginning is heavy biography, the middle is a vent sesh, and the end is largely social commentary.
The biggest thing that bothered me with this book was how she kept saying "We'll talk about this later", even when there was only 30 minutes left in the audiobook!
I can't decide a genre for this book. Is it vent sesh? A social commentary? A biography? The beginning is heavy biography, the middle is a vent sesh, and the end is largely social commentary.