Weapons of Math Destruction

AI undermines critical thinking and the creativity education is supposed to foster.

Dr. Kathy O'Neill is a mathematician, data scientist, and best-selling author of Weapons of Math Destruction and The Shame Machine.

She is the founder and CEO of the O'Neill's risk consulting and algorithmic auditing firm.

Last week, Kathy took part in a debate at Johns Hopkins University here in Baltimore, arguing against the proposition that generative AI will enhance college learning.

Thank you so much for your work, Dr. O'Neill.

Thanks for having me.

That was Dr. Kathy O'Neill, mathematician and bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction.

A full debate between Dr. O'Neill and Dr. Pensey about the role of AI in classrooms held by the Hopkins Forum will be released on November 13th on the podcast Open to Debate.

Luce, do you have a book that you wanted to recommend?

Yes, there's one that I recently read, and it's called Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neill.

I think the title in itself is already genius.

And it's basically how some algorithms that are used in big data can actually cause more inequality and eventually even threaten democracy.

And now our guest, Kathy O'Neill is a data scientist and former math professor who moved to the private sector to work as a quant and an auditor.

She's the author of two books, Weapons of Math Destruction and most recently, The Shame Machine.

This is her second appearance on our show.

She joined us in April of 2018 to help us ask whether big data was destroying democracy.

But, yeah, I definitely think of this as a kind of natural consequence of the original book.

It was kind of trying to get at the underlying power.

Like, how did weapons of mass destruction, how did those systems power? How did they wield power? And I concluded that it was through shame.

We're going to talk about the ambiguities of shame and when it's useful and when it's not, and when it's good and when it's not in a little bit.