Weapons of Math Destruction

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.