Client shoutout: Cathy O’Neil

99% Invisible interviews the woman that’s changing the way we think about algorithms

Math in the age of technology

One of our clients, Cathy O’Neil was just featured on a great podcast called 99% Invisible! You can check out the work we did for Cathy’s consulting business, ORCAA (O’Neil Risk Consulting & Algorithmic Auditing) over here on Drew’s blog.

Full disclosure: Drew and I did this project together before Good Good Work was born.

Not only is she a badass woman and mathematician, but Cathy does really important work auditing the algorithms that invisibly shape our lives. These highly tuned, mathematically magic spells are aimed at making life easier in the modern age, but they can also inadvertently cast curses, too (*ahem* Trump election…looking at you, Facebook).

99PI States:

“Computer algorithms now shape our world in profound and mostly invisible ways. They predict if we’ll be valuable customers and whether we’re likely to repay a loan. They filter what we see on social media, sort through resumes, and evaluate job performance. They inform prison sentences and monitor our health. Most of these algorithms have been created with good intentions. The goal is to replace subjective judgments with objective measurements. But it doesn’t always work out like that.”

More about Cathy and ORCAA

We love the work that Cathy is doing out in the world and we feel real proud to have supported her in her work. Big shoutout for injecting justice into our ever more complex society, Cathy!

Go check out these links to get more algorithmic goodness in your life:

• Listen to the full 99% Invisible podcast
• See Cathy’s work
• Pick up a copy of Weapons of Math Destruction

In solidarity,

Katie