This book reminds one to look behind the mere data, because what is behind can control the output, as well. It was also startling to realize the extent to which one's life is affected by these sort of computations.

So few of us are mathematically literate. The rest simply go through life unaware of how numbers can and will be used against them--and wondering what all the "statistics" they hear on the news mean. Only a few of us ask pertinent questions such as: How big was the sample? How heavily will this factor be weighed versus the other factor?

Weapons of Math Destruction is a book to help remedy the situation in which people are at the mercy of algorithms they don't know exist and would not understand. Knowing they exist is the first step towards building a proper defense against the destructive forces.

This book was not exactly what I was expecting, and I think that had a negative impact on how much I took away from it. The beginning was really promising, but it never really delivered on what it promised.

With Cathy O'Neil's background in math, I expected to get more information on the algorithms in the various models she was exploring and actual statistics. Obviously she doesn't have all of the numbers and can't access information from big companies and organizations, but I still expected more on the math side of things. An exploration of how the big data is really being used. In some ways that was presented, but it never delved very deeply below the surface.

For someone unfamiliar with the topics being discussed, who agrees with O'Neil's political stance on many of the issues outlined, this might be more informative. It made me think and gave me some new things to consider, but didn't really shed that much light on topics with which I am unfamiliar. The style of writing was also rather slow and the information somewhat scattered. O'Neil never clearly stated a viable solution to the problems the world is facing with big data.

This was an interesting read in a lot of ways, but not what I expected.

Interesting but not compelling, shows promise but didn't captivate enough to finish.