Cathy O'Neil

Here in the first hour, Greg and Pete talk to algorithmic auditor and writer Cathy O’ Neil about how algorithms can make life difficult and cause harm. Listen to Cathy break down the invisible force behind much of our modern tools from Amazon purchases, modern advertising, and social media. Beyond her writing, Cathy fights to make AI and algorithmic-based technology with her nonprofit ORCAA. When she’s not fighting harmful technology, Cathy likes to take time offscreen and play fiddle in her bluegrass band Five Year Plan. Sign up for Civic Media’s Newsletter Check us on our Instagram: @nitelitecm AND our Facebook: Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach | Facebook Stuff mentioned on the show: Cathy O’ Neil’s website Cathy’s 2017 book Weapons of Math Destruction. Cathy’s podcast “AI Skeptics.” Cathy’s nonprofit ORCAA trying to “help define accountability for algorithms.” The Flaming Lips | Live at Sydney Opera House U2 - The Joshua Tree Tour, 1987-11-18 Los Angeles, CA (Full Show) Cage The Elephant - Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked (The Sylvee, Madison WI) 10/17/2025 Guest: Cathy O'Neil

Shame and the classification of people have always been with us, but new technology can amplify the harmful effects of both. What can be learned from a careful study of algorithms at play in pivotal places in society? Cathy O’Neil is the founder of an algorithmic auditing company called Orca, a research fellow at Harvard University, and the author of two books, The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation and Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy . Greg and Cathy discuss what algorithmic auditing is and how it comes into play when we talk about using algorithms to affect decision-making in different businesses. Cathy explains how algorithms amplify and scale issues in the human auditing system without necessarily some of the failsafes, particularly how algorithms have modified the behavior and thinking of children and teens. Cathy also talks about the intersection of shame with these powerful algorithms in the seductive form of social media for teens and adults alike, and how they are geared toward and successfully generate outrage and arguments for their own profit and the ultimate detriment of the user. Explore more of her data-driven research positions in this conversation that can change the way you look at shame. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: What’s the goal of shame? 38:35: Conformity might seem like the most obvious goal of shame, and I guess in useful examples of shame, like when you shame your child for beating his little brother, that's a great example: “You can't do that to their little brother. Shame on you.” That's a great example of pro-social. There are other goals of shame, and it should be said because it'll make more sense as to why it's gotten out of hand. And one of them is setting an example, like setting an example, like look at this person; look at what they did. It's too late for them to not do it. They did it, right? But we're going to use them as an example for everyone to see what's going to happen to you if you do it. So it's more like a signpost than a conformity thing. It's, I guess, sort of like trying to get other people to conform in the future rather than to that person's behavior. Shame is required for a functioning society 03:49: Shame is not new. Shame is as old as social interaction, and it's absolutely required for a functioning society. We have to know how to sacrifice our personal goals and selfish desires for the sake of the group, which I think is the fundamental rule around shame. How does social media amplify shame? 40:44: The social media platforms have done something really extraordinary. They've built a new business model. It's no longer necessary to implicitly and explicitly shame someone and make them buy a product from you. That's the old business model. What they've done instead is built a world, which is the online world, a platform where they get you to shame each other. You are doing it, like you're co-opted, if you will. You profit from the existence of shaming. Fights on your platform because the longer those guys engage in those shaming, the cross-shaming, let's call them shame trains, the longer they get on those shame trains and ride as hard as possible, the longer people are on your platform. And ultimately, you're selling their attention. And so they're there. So they're paying attention to the ads around them, which is really, really the business model, as we all know. Finding the balance between shame and persuasion 52:18: Don't overestimate the choice involved. If you're shaming someone, you have to really be explicit about: is this really a choice? And if it is, then instead of shaming somebody, try to persuade them. And the way you persuade somebody of something, which is typically more successful tha

Mo Lotman interviews mathematician Cathy O’Neil. O’Neil worked in the private sector to make the algorithmic systems that automatically judge and score us. Deeply troubled by what she saw, she went on to write the 2016 bestseller Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy . She shares her insider’s look at how algorithms are gaming our world, with the worst consequences for those who can least afford them. Nobody escapes the grasp of algorithms in modern life. Per our recent article on Yelp, small business owners who have fallen afoul of Yelp’s manipulative algorithmic ranking have seen their businesses lose vast sums of money or be destroyed. If you live in the wrong neighborhood, algorithms may give you a worse credit rating, see that you spend more time in prison if you commit a crime, or even show you entirely different web pages when you are shopping online. O’Neil’s insights on algorithms are important in their own right, but algorithms are also the base layer of the AI that will be given more and more control of our society. What algorithms and AI have in common is the GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) Problem: if you put in bad data, you get bad decisions. The other commonality is both are frequently “black boxes,” which is to say, even the people who create algorithms and AI often cannot explain the decisions they generate. O’Neil originally founded O'Neil Risk Consulting & Algorithmic Auditing to make algorithms fairer and more transparent, but has since expanded that to include assessing AI risks . (For further reading, here’s a 20-second primer from the CMS Wire article AI vs. Algorithms what’s the difference? “An algorithm is a set of instructions — a preset, rigid, coded recipe that gets executed when it encounters a trigger. AI on the other hand — which is an extremely broad term covering a myriad of AI specializations and subsets — is a group of algorithms that can modify its algorithms and create new algorithms in response to learned inputs and data as opposed to relying solely on the inputs it was designed to recognize as triggers. This ability to change, adapt and grow based on new data, is described as ‘intelligence.’ ”) Get full access to The Technoskeptic Magazine at technoskeptic.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast : The Performance Audit Report Episode : 24 | Cathy O'Neil, Algorithm Auditor, Author of WMathD Pub date : 2023-02-28 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization Our guest is Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. Cathy joined us to discuss critical aspects for auditors to consider, including: The human element: why understanding 'for whom an algorithm might fail' is more important than the detailed technical design of an algorithm. Algorithm testing: the importance of post-deployment testing to ensure there are no unintended adverse outcomes. Setting standards: the need for industry-wide standards so that regulators can ensure there is no bias or discrimination in how algorithms operate. Laggers and leaders: the four big industries/domains using algorithms that need to step up audit in their space and how law-makers and regulators are catching up. Emerging AI, e.g. language models/chatbots - why trust by users is key, and the pros and cons of using these models. Links Cathy's company, ORCAA Weapons of Math Destruction (book) This episode's web page : https://pareports.com/podcast/24 About this podcast The podcast for performance auditors. Hosted by Conor McGarrity and Yusuf Moolla . Produced by PA Reports - Performance Audit Research . Get updates New episodes, and a fortnightly newsletter with a selection of PA reports and practices from audit offices. https://pareports.com/#cta-subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit performanceaudit.substack.com The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conor McGarrity and Yusuf Moolla, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Our guest is Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. Cathy joined us to discuss critical aspects for auditors to consider, including: The human element: why understanding 'for whom an algorithm might fail' is more important than the detailed technical design of an algorithm. Algorithm testing: the importance of post-deployment testing to ensure there are no unintended adverse outcomes. Setting standards: the need for industry-wide standards so that regulators can ensure there is no bias or discrimination in how algorithms operate. Laggers and leaders: the four big industries/domains using algorithms that need to step up audit in their space and how law-makers and regulators are catching up. Emerging AI, e.g. language models/chatbots - why trust by users is key, and the pros and cons of using these models. Links Cathy's company, ORCAA Weapons of Math Destruction (book) About this podcast The podcast for performance auditors and internal auditors that use (or want to use) data. Hosted by Conor McGarrity and Yusuf Moolla . Produced by Risk Insights (riskinsights.com.au).

Our guest is Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. Cathy joined us to discuss critical aspects for auditors to consider, including: The human element: why understanding 'for whom an algorithm might fail' is more important than the detailed technical design of an algorithm. Algorithm testing: the importance of post-deployment testing to ensure there are no unintended adverse outcomes. Setting standards: the need for industry-wide standards so that regulators can ensure there is no bias or discrimination in how algorithms operate. Laggers and leaders: the four big industries/domains using algorithms that need to step up audit in their space and how law-makers and regulators are catching up. Emerging AI, e.g. language models/chatbots - why trust by users is key, and the pros and cons of using these models. Links Cathy's company, ORCAA Weapons of Math Destruction (book) This episode's web page : https://pareports.com/podcast/24 About this podcast The podcast for performance auditors. Hosted by Conor McGarrity and Yusuf Moolla . Produced by PA Reports - Performance Audit Research . Get updates New episodes, and a fortnightly newsletter with a selection of PA reports and practices from audit offices. https://pareports.com/#cta-subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit performanceaudit.substack.com

UVA Data Points sits down with Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction , and Brian Wright, Assistant Professor of Data Science at the University of Virginia. The candid dialogue ranges from O'Neil's new book The Shame Machine to her work as an algorithm audit consultant. The two also draw comparisons between data science problems and knitting, as well as discuss educating future data scientists. Links: https://mathbabe.org (Cathy O'Neil's website) https://datascience.virginia.edu (UVA School of Data Science website) Books mentioned: The Shame Machine Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O'Neil (The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation) is a mathematician, data scientist, and author. Cathy joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how shaming is used as a tool of oppression, how companies profit from shaming people publicly, and how social media conditions us to shame. Cathy and Dax discuss Race to 270, what punching-up shaming is, and how most people are in denial of their own shame. Cathy explains what the four stages of shame are, when shame can be used appropriately, and the ways in which we can challenge our own shaming. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/578130 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy Author: Cathy O'neil Narrator: Cathy O'neil Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 23 minutes Release date: April 21, 2022 Genres: Current Affairs, Law, & Politics Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. In this New York Times bestseller, Cathy O'Neil, one of the first champions of algorithmic accountability, sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life -- and threaten to rip apart our social fabric. We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives - where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance - are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated. And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination. Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These 'weapons of math destruction' score teachers and students, sort CVs, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, target voters, and monitor our health. O'Neil calls on modellers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change. 'A manual for the 21st-century citizen... accessible, refreshingly critical, relevant and urgent' - Financial Times 'Fascinating and deeply disturbing' - Yuval Noah Harari, Guardian Books of the Year © Cathy O'Neil 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/578130 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy Author: Cathy O'neil Narrator: Cathy O'neil Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 23 minutes Release date: April 21, 2022 Genres: Current Affairs, Law, & Politics Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. In this New York Times bestseller, Cathy O'Neil, one of the first champions of algorithmic accountability, sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life -- and threaten to rip apart our social fabric. We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives - where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance - are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated. And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination. Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These 'weapons of math destruction' score teachers and students, sort CVs, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, target voters, and monitor our health. O'Neil calls on modellers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change. 'A manual for the 21st-century citizen... accessible, refreshingly critical, relevant and urgent' - Financial Times 'Fascinating and deeply disturbing' - Yuval Noah Harari, Guardian Books of the Year © Cathy O'Neil 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

S7 E19: In this episode, meet former deputy editor of Vanity Fair Dana Brown, mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil, and emergency medicine physician Dr. Thomas Fisher. Press play to hear about the personal moments that made narrating their own audiobooks so special. Dilettante by Dana Brown: https://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/625042/dilettante/ The Shame Machine by Cathy O'Neil: https://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/606203/the-shame-machine/ The Emergency by Dr. Thomas Fisher: https://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/659219/the-emergency/

Cathy O'Neil - a veteran of both Wall Street and Occupy Wall Street - joins me to discuss her new book, The Shame Machine . We discuss her previous book, Weapons of Math Destruction , how it led her to The Shame Machine , and how shame has become an invisible currency sustaining capitalism's most exploitative practices. Cathy outlines how social media "cancellations" are just free advertisements for social media companies, while the oligarchs and meritocrats who truly deserve to be shamed not only don't get shamed but also manage to profit off the shame everyone else is feeling. I don't think you'll ever view the relationship between corporations and shame the same way after you hear Cathy's analysis. As always, you can find me at www.everydayanarchism.com .