EECS 649

University 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 the human’s understanding of math and the natural world. In a vacuum, the result from the work could be seen as a pinnacle of humanity, but bombs are not made to be placed in vacuums. Magnificent work went into something that could kill.

Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction deals with topics with many parallels to the Manhattan Project, on a less nuclear scale, of course. In chapter 2, O’Neil recalls her time spent on the top of the financial world: Wall Street. She recounts her view from the top of the world in early 2008, and how disillusionment pursued any sense of ethics and planted a dagger in the name of short-term profits. O’Neil, a very educated woman, saw the separation between the models that were created (models created to help banks determine risk for loans, mortgages, etc.) and real life: the people and the effects of the models on the people. She noted that this growing divide shook the world, perpetrating a dystopia and ever-growing inequality. She saw what Oppenheimer, the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project, saw; she saw how this incredible form of algorithms could be pointed at undeserved victims, and how the imbalance of power would be continued; she became disillusioned with these models.

Oppenheimer saw the bombs drop, and O’Neil saw the 2008 housing and financial crisis. She explains that the banks and mortgage companies were making profits by loaning money to people for homes they could not afford and betting against these very securities they sold. To make things more nefarious, these companies were targeting poorer communities, trying to take advantage of them. These banks would then load these bad mortgages and loans into securities and sell them, knowing full well these securities would fail, but they would fail so the banks could maximize short-term profits. Eventually, the housing bomb dropped, ripping away the curtain that separated an account number to a livelihood, and the rest is known.

My biggest take away from this chapter is that the modern form of power comes in the form of a good education. The pen is mightier than the sword, these days at least. To make matters worse, good education is not available to everyone; those with it will be able to implement this powerful math onto the world, and with it gain more capital and power. Those without will struggle.