Automating Inequality

Virginia Eubanks lays out a powerful, deeply researched case for reconsidering the role of technology and algorithms in vital human services. By considering in depth a number of specific cases of how different technologies have created Kafka-esque systems that ossify and amplify existing societal biases, Eubanks challenges technologists, researchers, and governments to rethink how and what they build. This book also contains devastating historical analyses of decision making relating to services for the poor, showing that today's efforts are not an innovation or an aberration. Highly recommend

One of the greatest sins of tech workers is to imagine that technology can solve everything, that there's some sort of algorithm that can just handle all the work in the world while we actively imbue our biases into them to create what the author here calls a "digital poorhouse". The concept is sharp, the examples are detailed, authoritative and include the human side, something that academics often shy away from. This book challenges your expectations of tech by showing examples that are brazenly attempting to limit welfare recipients through bureaucracy rather than improving their lives or treating the homeless as some form of over-surveilled livestock that isn't granted the same rights as housed people. It's a powerful walk through some of the most unfortunate things we've tried to push despite accusations of immorality, whether the underlying cause is cruelty, lack of resources, or simply apathy towards the poor.

One of the greatest sins of tech workers is to imagine that technology can solve everything, that there's some sort of algorithm that can just handle all the work in the world while we actively imbue our biases into them to create what the author here calls a "digital poorhouse". The concept is sharp, the examples are detailed, authoritative and include the human side, something that academics often shy away from. This book challenges your expectations of tech by showing examples that are brazenly attempting to limit welfare recipients through bureaucracy rather than improving their lives or treating the homeless as some form of over-surveilled livestock that isn't granted the same rights as housed people. It's a powerful walk through some of the most unfortunate things we've tried to push despite accusations of immorality, whether the underlying cause is cruelty, lack of resources, or simply apathy towards the poor.