First Post: Mindless | Civicist

Cathy O’Neil, the author of Weapons of Math Destruction, has hit a nerve. In response to a piece she wrote for The New York Times on how the ivory halls of academia have been neglecting technology to their peril, academics piled on in the comments to tell O’Neil how wrong she is, including Zeynep Tufekci, often by pointing to work they have done, or to other major players in the field like Data & Society. (But, as I understand it, D&S is a standalone research institute—created with funding from Microsoft and others—and exists outside the vaunted halls of academia that O’Neil is criticizing, and furthermore, its fellowship program does not provide the kind of support for sustained, independent academic work that tenured university positions would, which is what O’Neil is asking for.)