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Quote by Cathy O'Neil

“There might never be that moment when everyone says, "Oh my God, big data is awful."”

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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

“By construction, the world of big data is siloed and segmented and segregated so that successful people, like myself - technologists, well-educated white people, for the most part - benefit from big data, and it's the people on the other side of the economic spectrum, especially people of color, who suffer from it. They suffer from it individually, at different times, at different moments. They never get a clear explanation of what actually happened to them because all these scores are secret and sometimes they don't even know they're being scored.”

“When people are not given an option by some secret scoring system, it's very hard to complain, so they often don't even know that they've been victimized.”

People Knows Hard Given Secret Complaining

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“Evidence of harm is hard to come by.”

Hard Evidence Harm

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“I've also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create.”

Men Feels Ability Loneliness Standards Built Lonely Great Men Being Alone Being Lonely High Standards Loneliness And Solitude I Am Lonely Lonely Feeling Lonely And Alone Alone Lonely Alone Life I Feel Lonely

Author:Yousuf Karsh

“I don't think anybody's ever notified that they were sentenced to an extra two years because their recidivism score had been high, or notified that this beat cop happened to be in their neighborhood checking people's pockets for pot because of a predictive policing algorithm. That's just not how it works.”

People Thinking Years Two Happened Beats Extras Score Pockets Neighborhood Two Years Pot Cop Algorithms Recidivism

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“Occupy provided me a lens through which to see systemic discrimination.”

Discrimination Lenses

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“The national conversation around white entitlement, around institutionalized racism, the Black Lives Matter movement, I think, came about in large part because of the widening and broadening of our understanding of inequality. That conversation was begun by Occupy.”

Thinking Matter Understanding Black White Movement Conversation Racism Inequality Black Lives Matter Entitlement Black Lives

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“Because of my experience in Occupy, instead of asking the question, "Who will benefit from this system I'm implementing with the data?" I started to ask the question, "What will happen to the most vulnerable?" Or "Who is going to lose under this system? How will this affect the worst-off person?" Which is a very different question from "How does this improve certain people's lives?"”

People Persons Doe Different Happens Certain Asks Loses Worst Benefits Asking Vulnerable Data Implementing

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“Obviously the more transparency we have as auditors, the more we can get, but the main goal is to understand important characteristics about a black box algorithm without necessarily having to understand every single granular detail of the algorithm.”

Important Goal Black Details Boxes Characteristics Transparency Algorithms Auditors Black Boxes

Author:Cathy O'Neil

“With recidivism algorithms, for example, I worry about racist outcomes. With personality tests [for hiring], I worry about filtering out people with mental health problems from jobs. And with a teacher value-added model algorithm [used in New York City to score teachers], I worry literally that it's not meaningful. That it's almost a random number generator.”

Quote by Cathy O'Neil

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