Because of my experience in Occupy, instead of asking the question, "Who will benefit from this system I'm implementing with the data?" I started to ask the question, "What will happen to the most vulnerable?" Or "Who is going to lose under this system? How will this affect the worst-off person?" Which is a very different question from "How does this improve certain people's lives?"
Cathy O'NeilWe don't let a car company just throw out a car and start driving it around without checking that the wheels are fastened on. We know that would result in death; but for some reason we have no hesitation at throwing out some algorithms untested and unmonitored even when they're making very important life-and-death decisions.
Cathy O'NeilWhen people are not given an option by some secret scoring system, it's very hard to complain, so they often don't even know that they've been victimized.
Cathy O'Neil