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Quote by Cathy O'Neil

“So much of our society as a whole is gearing us to maximize our salary or bonus. Basically, we just think in terms of money. Or, if not money, then, if you're in academia, it's prestige. It's a different kind of currency. And there's this unmeasured dimension of all jobs, which is whether it's improving the world.”

Quote by Cathy O'Neil

Author

Cathy O'Neil is an expert in data science and statistics, with a focus on data analysis and machine learning. Her work centers on ethical and fairness issues within these fields. more

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“The training one receives when one becomes a technician, like a data scientist - we get trained in mathematics or computer science or statistics - is entirely separated from a discussion of ethics.”

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“Most people don't have any association in their minds with what they do and with ethics. They think they somehow moved past the questions of morality or values or ethics, and that's something that I've never imagined to be true.”

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“Especially from my experience as a quant in a hedge fund - I naively went in there thinking that I would be making the market more efficient and then was like, oh my God, I'm part of this terrible system that is blowing up the world's economy, and I don't want to be a part of that.”

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“It's a standard thing you hear from startup people - that their product is somehow improving the world. And if you follow the reasoning, you will get somewhere, and I'll tell you where you get: You'll get to the description of what happens to the winners under the system that they're building.”

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“Every system using data separates humanity into winners and losers.”

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“An insurance company might say, "Tell us more about yourself so your premiums can go down." When they say that, they're addressing the winners, not the losers.”

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“That's what we do when we work in Silicon Valley tech startups: We think about who's going to benefit from this. That's almost the only thing we think about.”

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“I think what's happened is that the general public has become much more aware of the destructive power of Wall Street.”

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“The disconnect I was experiencing was that people hated Wall Street, but they loved tech.”

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“People are starting to be very skeptical of the Facebook algorithm and all kinds of data surveillance.”

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