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…

— Cathy O'Neil

“They draw statistical correlations between a person’s zip code or language patterns and her potential to pay back a loan or handle…

— Cathy O'Neil

I don't think anybody's ever notified that they were sentenced to an extra two years because their recidivism score had been high,…

— 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…

— Cathy O'Neil

“model’s blind spots reflect the judgments and priorities of its creators. While the choices in Google Maps and avionics software appear cut…

— Cathy O'Neil

I would argue that one of the major problems with our blind trust in algorithms is that we can propagate discriminatory patterns…

— Cathy O'Neil

We've learned our lesson with finance because they made a huge goddamn explosion that almost shut down the world. But the thing…

— Cathy O'Neil

“Employers, for example, are increasingly using credit scores to evaluate potential hires. Those who pay their bills promptly, the thinking goes, are…

— Cathy O'Neil

Google is so big you have no idea what a given person does.

— Cathy O'Neil

It's a standard thing you hear from startup people - that their product is somehow improving the world. And if you follow…

— Cathy O'Neil

The NSA buys data from private companies, so the private companies are the source of all this stuff.

— Cathy O'Neil

“The algorithms would make sure that those deemed losers would remain that way. A lucky minority would gain ever more control over…

— Cathy O'Neil

“As we’ve seen, they (the companies) routinely reject applicants on the basis of credit scores and personality tests. Health scores represent a…

— Cathy O'Neil

We don't let a car company just throw out a car and start driving it around without checking that the wheels are…

— Cathy O'Neil

The public trusts big data way too much.

— Cathy O'Neil

My fantasy is that there is a new regulatory body that is in charge of algorithmic auditing.

— Cathy O'Neil

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

— 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…

— Cathy O'Neil

“We’ve seen time and again that mathematical models can sift through data to locate people who are likely to face great challenges,…

— Cathy O'Neil

“This was the Big Data economy, and it promised spectacular gains. A computer program could speed through thousands of résumés or loan…

— Cathy O'Neil

“My point is that police make choices about where they direct their attention. Today they focus almost exclusively on the poor. That’s…

— Cathy O'Neil

I know how models are built, because I build them myself, so I know that I'm embedding my values into every single…

— Cathy O'Neil

The most important goal I had in mind was to convince people to stop blindly trusting algorithms and assuming that they are…

— Cathy O'Neil

When I think about whether I want to take a job, I don't just think about whether it's technically interesting, although I…

— Cathy O'Neil

For whatever reason, I have never separated the technical from the ethical.

— Cathy O'Neil