Chelsey

If you're looking for hard data or a deep exploration into mathematical algorithms, this book will disappoint. It is, however, an eye-opening, bird's-eye view of a field that is quietly taking over quite a few parts of our lives. I applaud the author for expressing such a high level of empathy for people whose plights she does not share, and for providing such a well-written overview that even the layperson can understand.

For those that are being introduced to this topic, I highly recommend this book (my only criticism is the term Weapons of Math Destruction - or WMD - itself, and how often it is overused within the book). If you are interested in learning more about the specific ways in which machine learning and mathematical algorithms are wreaking havoc in different parts of society, other books are better poised to teach on the details of those topics, such as The New Jim Crow and Automating Inequality.

This book was nothing like anything else I've read from Jennifer Egan, but it was a riveting read in its own right. If you are going into this expecting the character play of Goon Squad or the twist of The Keep, stop now. But if you're looking to be thoroughly engrossed in the world of the book in front of you and content to follow the very human story of the characters presented, you won't be disappointed.

This started out so promising - a sarcastic, informative, and realistic insider's take on the world within a world that is Silicon Valley. It turns out that about half of the book delivers on that promise, and then the rest unravels into a mostly uninteresting memoir full of bad blood and axes to grind. The author is genuinely talented with a great sense of humor - I just wish that an editor would have reigned in the narrative and kept the book on course. I don't regret reading it, but it drags on for at least 100 pages too long.

This book could have been really great, and I was very excited about it, as it is written by a doctor with extensive experience in studying bacteria and the body. Unfortunately, he veers into the territory of the unknown too often, ending most sections and chapters with statements such as “well we don't know this yet and haven't confirmed it yet, but there's good reason to believe this should work.” In a book written by a medical physician with research experience, I am looking for firm science and evidence-based recommendations.