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Cathy O'Neil: Do Algorithms Perpetuate Human Bias?

Part 1of the TED Radio Hour episode Can We Trust The Numbers?

About Cathy O'Neil's TED Talk

Mathematician Cathy O'Neil says algorithms embed existing bias into code — with potentially destructive outcomes. Everyone should question their fairness, not just computer scientists and coders.

About Cathy O'Neil

Cathy O'Neil is a mathematician, data scientist, and author of the blog mathbabe.org.

After receiving a PhD in mathematics from Harvard University in 1999, she taught at Barnard and MIT. She then went on to work as a hedge fund analyst, and later a data scientist, designing algorithms for targeted ads.

O'Neil is the author of several data science books, such as Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR/TED Staff