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Book Review: Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil

February 11, 2017 //
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(Clicking on the image above will take you to Amazon where a tiny percentage goes to help my movie and book buying habit.)

 

Statistics, standardized testing, crime prediction, Google, Facebook, “Moneyballing,” insurance risk analysis, and mathematical models all have one thing in common; they can all fall into the catch all term of “big data.”

There are very few parts of modern life that are not impacted by big data; for better or for worse. The mathematical models that harness vast amounts of data are used for everything:  to determine who should receive a bank loan, which teachers should be fired, whether to hire a particular worker, where police should patrol, which colleges are the best to apply to, which students should offered a place in a college, how sports are played, and even the sentences that convicted criminals should receive.

Some of these mathematical models are transparent.  The model featured in the book and movie “Moneyball” (you can read my review of the movie here) would be an example of a transparent model. The data and the rules that lead to the model’s conclusions are open and available for everyone to see. However, more and more, the models are opaque and it is these models that Ms. O’Neil goes after with devastating logic and passion.

The fundamental issue with these opaque models, other than a lack of openness and therefore the impossibility to challenge their assumptions, is that they can suffer from a lack of feedback or create self-reinforcing feedback loops. Because the models are opaque, many people may not even realize that are in a mathematical model, or that the model is partially or wholly responsible for their circumstance.

As Ms. O’Neil states in her introduction: “Without feedback; however, a statistical engine can continue spinning out faulty and damaging analysis while never learning from its mistakes. Many of the W.M.D’s (Weapons of Math Destruction) I’ll be discussing in this book … behave like that. They define their own reality and use it to justify their results. This type of model is self-perpetuating, highly destructive, and very common.”

Ms. O’Neil does go to some great lengths to stress that a lot of these models have been built with the intention of being fairer. The idea being that removing flawed human beings from decisions that could be made by mathematical models would remove their biases and faulty logic from the progress. However, it is these same flawed humans that are creating the models and without proper feedback, monitoring, and proper understanding of statistics, the models themselves can cause far worse problems than the ones they are supposed to solve.

Written for the layperson, about a subject that would cause most peoples eyes to glaze over unless written by Ms. O’Neil, this is a great and important book and one that I feel will become only more important as mathematical models become even more entwined in our lives. This is also an important book for those is position to make use of mathematical models in their business as there can be significant pressure to accept the word of a program when we should be asking some pretty hard and detailed questions; not only to ensure that what we are getting is correct, but also to ensure that we are not contributing to the Weapons of Math Destruction problem.

Garbage in – Garbage out, has never been more apt.  

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Categories Books, Business, Management, Marketing, Search, Social Media

Book Review: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

August 9, 2016 //
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(Clicking on the image above will take you to Amazon where a tiny percentage goes to help fund my book buying habit.)

“We have always had some influence over the justice system but for the first time in 180 years, since the stocks and the pillory were outlawed we have the power to determine the severity of some punishments and so we have to think about what level of mercilessness we feel comfortable with.”

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson shines a, sometimes unwelcome, light on the unforgiving nature of Internet shaming. Ronson convincingly argues that almost 200 years ago we abandoned shaming as a form of punishment, not due a lack of effectiveness with rise of the larger towns and cities, but because it was seen as overly cruel.

Ronson has extraordinary access to those who lives have been ruined because of a bad out of context joke, calling out someone for perceived sexist comments, for making perceived sexist comments, and for being too irreverent in a selfie at a national memorial. The author also cleverly focuses on those less worthy of pity; the successful author who gets found out for making up quotes, and exposes our own attitudes to shaming. And then there are those who seem to have beaten the shame cycle; the UK publicist who went to war with the tabloid press, and the small town where almost a hundred of its citizenry where reveled to be visiting a local prostitute.

As well as telling the story of the various victims of the modern age of public shaming, Ronson also tells us of his own journey and grappling with his own role in the shaming of others and of being of control of his internet persona. This does not hang together quite as well as the rest of the book. I have a hard time, for instance, that such a talented researcher cannot look back through their own Twitter history to see who they have previously shamed. However, this is minor quibble and a brave personal exploration and opening up about personal shame.

The book does end on a relatively positive note due to the miracles of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), however the real point of the book is for the reader to examine how they feel about this return of public shaming. Even for those whom it is hard to defend; the hunters seeking big game trophies, the Vet taking pleasure in shooting a cat with a bow and arrow, and the plagiarizing author, to name but a few – do they really deserve this level of life altering destruction?

For those who answer yes, this book is for you. “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” is, if nothing else, a testament to how much of a double edged sword internet shame can be, how cruel and destructive it is, and how uncomfortable we should all be with it. The Internet shows us at our best and worst as a culture – it is we who have to change.

Note: I have refrained from using the names of any of the subjects, or related people, in this post so as not to add to add to the problem.

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Categories Books, Business, Career Advice, Management, Search, Social Media, Veterinary

Book Review: Violated Online – How Online Slander Can Destroy Your Life & What You Must Do to Protect Yourself, by Steven Wyer

December 17, 2011 //
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Violated Online is a interesting book for a number of reasons. But by far the most interesting thing is the quandary at it’s heart.

Wyer runs a company that specializes in Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) and Violated Online is essentially a 200 page pitch for the SERM industry. In case there is any doubt, SERM is essentially the same as the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practiced by online marketers to ensure that search engine results reflect the results that they want.

The fundamental idea at the heart of Violated Online is that we live in a connected world and that information is easy to find or publish. That this world can be a scary place, and that things have changed, should really come as no surprise to anyone.

It is hard not to feel while reading this work that the author would rather go back to the “good-old-days.” By its own admission, Violated Online states that a lot of personal information was always available offline, but that now this information is a lot easier to access and somehow this makes the internet is a bad thing. It is interesting to reflect that only 10 years ago we gladly gave our social security numbers to department store clerks, or any other number of people, to bring up account information. Just like we have all learned to control our personal information, we also have to take responsibility for our online presence.

To be fair, Violated Online, makes this exact argument. However, most people reading it will only take away from the near hysterical tone is the idea that to protect themselves they need to stay off the internet or employ a SERM company. For example, some of the advise is practically useless for the average person – registering every single web address permutation of you and your families name. Great advise for a business, or someone in the public eye, but more than a little over the top for most people. It is easy to forget that in the days before the internet, if the major media misquoted or focused on an individual, there was very little recourse. The internet can magnify these problems but it also provides an avenue for correcting those mistakes. Violated Online makes no such comparisons or admissions.

However, the biggest issue with this book is that on the one hand it bemoans that individuals can be anonymous online, and then rails against social media’s use of proper names and identities. You can’t have it both ways! The online identity issue is significant, but it needs to be handled with education about when you can and can’t rely on online information and who posted it.

Violated Online is an important book and is well worth reading, despite its problems. Just don’t buy into the end of the world scenarios and take away its most important message – take control of your life online before someone else does.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

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Categories Books, Marketing, Search, Social Media
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