Apr 21, 2021Evan PowellEECS 649 Blog 11 Although these chapters feel formulaic and depressing, it absolutely deserves to be repeated. And while I start this blog with more of a closing thought, as we near the end of this book I see that the goal has been achieved — to drive home the…2 min read
Apr 16, 2021Evan PowellEECS 649 Blog 10 Chapter eight of Cathy O’Neils’ Weapons of Math Destruction is not a far cry from the previous chapters in the book — although there is a brief glimmer of hope, a diamond in the rough reality — but for the most part it is still a…2 min read
Apr 7, 2021EECS 649Blog 9 Evan Powell I am pretty sure that, at least in the EECS 649 circles, that there is a new saying: another week, another thing for Cathy O’neils to ruin for us. Of course, by ruin I do mean “expose and bring attention to”, and if the dots ever…3 min read
Mar 31, 2021EECS 649Blog 8 Evan Powell The next chapter of Cathy O’Neils Weapons of Math Destruction follows the pattern established thus far in the book : O’Neil will explain to the reader how yet another WMD that is used in a way that deals (potentially) more harm than good (no harm is…2 min read
Mar 24, 2021EECS 649Evan Powell Blog 7 Chapter five of Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction culminates finally to what the previous chapters have all mentioned but never — so squarely — faced: the civilian casualties that these weapons of math destruction create. Models such as PredPol, a model used to determine the…2 min read
Mar 17, 2021EECS 649University Of Kansas Blog 6 Evan Powell Chapter Four of O’neils’ Weapons of Math Destruction discusses modern-day advertising, and more particularly, the weaponized version that is implemented and wielded by for-profit colleges. Growing up in the blossoming of the age of information, I was used to seeing advertisements everywhere. Seemingly…2 min read
Mar 10, 2021EECS 649Blog 5 In chapter five of Weapons of Math Destruction, O’Neil pulls back the curtain on the algorithm influenced rat race in which American universities found themselves intertwined. A model (not even an all-powerful Deep Learning model, but a simple model) that judged and ranked higher education institutes quickly became…2 min read
Mar 3, 2021EECS 649University of Kansas Evan Powell Blog 4 In New Mexico, circa 1945, a science experiment was in the works. The United States government was testing the results of the Manhattan Project — the nuclear bomb. The process leading up to this day was fueled by desperation and the culmination of…2 min read
Feb 24, 2021EECS 649University of Kansas Evan Powell Blog #3 So far, in O’Neill’s Weapons of Math Destruction, she has gone over how people can use crude data to subconsciously form models to help with everyday life. These models could be used to help decide what to eat and other miscellaneous tasks. However…2 min read
Feb 17, 2021EECS 649UNIVERITY OF KANSAS EVAN POWELL Blog Number Two If, in the future, I have a great enough grasp of AI and the branches of Machine Learning, I would like to attempt to design an AI that could construct songs spanning genres, with a few parameters as input. While this is…2 min read