Data scientist Cathy O’Neil on the cold destructiveness of big data

Nikhil Sonnad:

O’Neil: All of the time when you’re on the internet. All of the time. I have a couple examples that I like to tell because they affect everyone, and everyone is kind of offended by them in a very direct way.

One of them is, you call up customer service, and from your phone number they infer your value as a customer. If you’re a low-value customer you will wait on hold forever. If you’re a high-value customer you get to a customer representative immediately. And if you’re low-value, you’re likely to be told by the rep, “Oh you’re low-value, you’re not going to get what you want.” That happens. I didn’t even know the rep knows your score, but turns out that in that system they actually do. And they can say, “I’m not going to give you what you want.”


Fast Lane Literacy by sedso