Automating Inequality
A powerful investigative look at data-based discrimination—and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years—because a new computer system interprets any mistake as “failure to cooperate.” In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect. Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems—rather than humans—control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America.
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9recommend
15mentions
13people
2018–2026years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks[1] presents pretty clear argument for why this is a terrible idea.
[1] https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250074317/automatinginequ...
- I recommend the book "Automating Inequality" by Virginia Eubanks for a deeper dive here.
- https://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/
> In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile. Deeply researched and passionately written, Automating Inequality could not be more timely.
- A book called Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks touches on how for many years now, we've hid unfair policies behind computer complexity. It was really eye opening to me how what seems to be a poorly implemented system is actually working as intended in order to make life difficult for certain people.
- FWIW Mandie, here's my list of modern pop tech critique, all topics that DV touches at least tangentially. Far more than 40 days and nights worth of reading
Shoshana Zuboff Big Other (surveillance capitalism)
Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality
Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged
Cory Doctorow Radicalized
Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design
Nick Srnicek Platform Capitalism
Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine
Heather Burns Understanding Privacy
Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us
Catherine Price How to Break Up With Your Phone
Thomas Kersting Disconnected: Protect Your Kids Against Device Dependency
Nicholas Kardaras Glow Kids
Zeynep Tufekci Twitter and Tear Gas
Lelia Green Technoculture
Douglas Rushkoff Team Human
Jaron Lanier Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media
Carissa Véliz Privacy is Power: Why You Should Take Back Control
Xiaowei Wang Blockchain Chicken Farm
Jenny Oddell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Wendy Liu Abolish SIlicon Valley
Jonathan Taplin Move Fast and Break Things
Andrew L. Shapiro The Control Revolution
Lawrence Lessig Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
David Shenk Data Smog
Douglas Rushkoff Cyberia
Paulina Borsook Cyberselfish.
- The 'Automating Inequality' book is 1/3 about homelessness issues, you might be interested :
