How long does it take to read Weapons of Math Destruction?
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil takes about 5 hours 6 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 6 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2016. 278 pages, about 76,450 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 30 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 6 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 11 minutes |
The page count is the median across 16 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Weapons of Math Destruction is a work of nonfiction in which mathematician Cathy O'Neil examines how big data algorithms shape decisions in areas such as insurance, advertising, education and policing. Her argument is that certain models, which she calls weapons of math destruction, turn human traits into numbers and then harm poorer people, entrench racism and deepen existing inequality. She says these tools share three features: they are opaque, unregulated and hard to challenge. Because they can be scaled up, their built-in biases reach ever larger populations.
This summary was written by AI and checked by a second AI model. How these are chosen.
Subjects: math, big data, inequality, democracy, Social indicators, Moral and ethical aspects
