Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age and co-editor, with Alethia Jones, of Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith. Her writing about technology and social justice has appeared in Scientific American, The Nation, Harper's, and Wired. For two decades, Eubanks has worked in community technology and economic justice movements. She lives in Troy, NY.
ONE OF Vox's 12 GREAT SOCIAL SCIENCE BOOKS OF THE 2010's "This is a
rigorous, compelling piece of qualitative social science and one of
the best-crafted nonfiction books I've ever read, period. As a
journalist, it made me actively envious of its prose.... a reminder
of what can go awry when politicians mistake technical solutions
for political solutions." --Dylan Matthews, Vox "Required reading
for the modern age, Automating Inequality explains through
beautifully rendered individual stories and deeply researched
historical analysis why we must remain vigilant and skeptical of
the promises of artificial intelligence fed to us by those who
stand to gain from their adoption." --Cathy O'Neil, New York Times
bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction "[Automating
Inequality's] argument is that the use of automated decision-making
in social service programs creates a "digital poorhouse" that
perpetuates the kinds of negative moral judgments that have always
been attached to poverty in America...Eubanks proposes a
Hippocratic oath for data scientists, whereby they would vow to
respect all people and to not compound patterns of discrimination."
--The New York Review of Books "Riveting (an accomplishment for a
book on technology and policy). Its argument should be widely
circulated, to poor people, social service workers and
policymakers, but also throughout the professional classes.
Everyone needs to understand that technology is no substitute for
justice." --The New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant book about how we penalize poverty. It would make a
great pairing with Evicted." --Barbara Fister, Inside Higher Ed "An
important book." --Pacific Standard "Investigates three experiments
in which algorithms are replacing or augmenting human
decision-making in public assistance." --Jacobin Magazine
"Eubanks ably demonstrates why everyone should be very, very
worried about the present and future of poverty management. Along
with the personalized stories, her data exposes the political will,
the ease of establishment and the ripe soil for letting cold math
take our deepest biases and, in effect, render them into invisible
cages for the most vulnerable." --NY Daily News "Eubanks's ability
to combine beautiful biographic storytelling with keen observation
and criticism makes this an indispensable addition to the
literature on what Cathy O'Neil calls Weapons of Math Destruction"
--Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing "To call the stories and data Eubanks
has collected infuriating feels like an
understatement...marginalized people are often the first to face
experiments in assessment and punishment through technological
tools. ..What's incisive about Automating Inequality is how it
underscores the subtle ways technology is used to this end." --New
Republic "Powerful..." --The Progressive "Eubanks takes a hard look
at some of the seemingly agnostic--and even well-meaning
technologies--that promise to make the U.S. welfare apparatus
well-oiled and efficient." --CityLab "Compelling." --Kronket Media
"Computing has long been perceived to be a culture-free zone--this
needs to change. But change will only occur when policymakers and
voters understand the true scale of the problem. This is hard when
we live in an era that likes to celebrate digitisation--and where
the elites are usually shielded from the consequences of those
algorithms." --The Financial Times "[A] must read...On par with
Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed or Matthew Desmond's Evicted.
It's rigorously researched, phenomenally accessible, and utterly
humbling. While there are a lot of important books that touch on
the costs and consequences of technology through case studies and
well-reasoned logic, this book is the first one that I've read that
really pulls you into the world of algorithmic decision-making and
inequality, like a good ethnography should." --danah boyd, author
of It's Complicated "Eubanks says we manage the poor so we don't
have to eradicate poverty....Eubanks explores three very different
and widely separated approaches to managing, manipulating and
controlling the poor in Indiana, the homeless in Los Angeles, and
the child welfare in Pittsburgh." --San Francisco Review of Books
"Eubanks argues that automated systems separate people from
resources, classify and criminalize people, and invade privacy--and
that these problems will affect everyone eventually, not just the
poor. The book's final chapter offers strategies to dismantle the
digital poorhouse." --Booklist (starred review)
"Eubanks's advocacy for the Americans impacted by this trend is
passionate and matched by incisive analysis and bolstered by
impressive research." --Library Journal "This is the single most
important book about technology you will read this year. Today
everyone is worrying about the Internet's impact on democracy, but
Eubanks shows that the problems facing us run much deeper than
"fake news"--automated systems entrench social and economic
inequality by design and undermine private and public welfare.
Eubanks dives into history and reports from the trenches, helping
us better understand the political and digital forces we are up
against so we can effectively fight back." --Astra Taylor, author
of The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the
Digital Age
"Income inequality relies on the lie of the neutrality of
efficiency over the value of our common humanity. Automating
Inequality exposes the deadly consequences of this plan and
suggests another path. That Virginia Eubanks is our guide--a person
so capable, ethical and whipsmart--is a rare combination indeed."
--Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family
"This book is downright scary--but with its striking research and
moving, indelible portraits of life in the 'digital poorhouse, '
you will emerge smarter and more empowered to demand justice."
--Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes
Everything
"This book is for all of us: community leaders, scholars, lawyers,
recipients of government assistance, and anyone alive whose
survival depends upon a better understanding of how nations made
wealthy by digital industries are using technology to create and
maintain a permanent underclass. It is a book for our times."
--Malkia A. Cyril, Executive Director and Co-founder, Center for
Media Justice
"Automating Inequality is one of the most important recent books
for understanding the social implications of information technology
for marginalized populations in the US . As we begin discussing the
potential for AI to harm people, Eubanks's work should be required
reading." --Ethan Zuckerman, Director, Center for Civic Media,
MIT
"Startling and brilliant... As Eubanks makes crystal clear,
automation coupled with the new technologies of ethical abandonment
and instrumental efficiency threaten not only the lives of millions
who are viewed as disposable but also democracy itself. If you want
to understand how this digital nightmare is reaching deep into the
institutions that attempt to regulate our lives, and how you can
challenge it, this is a must read." --Henry Giroux, McMaster
University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the
Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy
"Equal parts advocacy and analysis--a welcome addition to the
growing literature around the politics of welfare." --Kirkus
Reviews
"The most data is collected on the most marginalized
groups...Eubanks' ethnography makes visible the politics behind our
tools." --Internetactu.net "In this remarkable chronicle of 'how
the other half lives' in the age of automation, Eubanks uncovers a
new digital divide--a totalizing web of surveillance ensnaring our
most marginalized communities. This powerful, sobering, and humane
book exposes the dystopia of data-driven policy and urges us to
create a more just society for all." --Alondra Nelson, author of
The Social Life of DNA
"In this illuminating book, Eubanks shows us that in spite of
cosmetic reforms, our policies for the disadvantaged remain
dominated by the ancient credo of the poor law, obsessed with the
exclusion and punishment of the neediest in our communities."
--Frances Fox Piven, author of Regulating the Poor "U.S.
institutions from law enforcement to health care to social services
increasing punish people- especially people of color - for being
poor. Automating Inequality powerfully exposes how secret,
high-tech monitoring systems facilitate this injustice. A must-read
for everyone concerned about modern tools of inequality in
America." --Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and
Shattered Bond
"Automating Inequality is a riveting, emotionally compelling story
of vulnerable lives turned upside down by bad data, shoddy
software, and bureaucrats too inept or corrupt to make things
right. Systems billed as a way to protect the vulnerable in fact,
all too often, do just the opposite, trapping them in a modern-day
star chamber. Eubanks both gives voice to the marginalized, and
offers a bold vision for dismantling the "digital poorhouse." We
could all fall victim to the systems Eubanks condemns--and everyone
should read this book to learn how modern governance, all too often
shrouded behind impenetrable legal and computer code, actually
works." --Frank Pasquale, author of The Black Box Society: The
Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information "Virginia
Eubanks' new book shocks us with her gripping stories of the
emerging surveillance state for managing poverty in the U.S. today.
From single mothers on welfare, to homeless individuals on the
streets, to parents suspected of child neglect, the 'digital
poorhouse, ' as Eubanks calls it, increasingly extends its web of
surveillance from classifying to predicting the poor and their
behavior, not so much to aid as to manage, discipline and punish
them for the poverty society imposes on them. We learn once again
that technology might be neutral but not the choices the powerful
make to use it. Read this book and join with Eubanks in pushing
back against the surveillance state and the injustice it sustains."
--Sanford Schram, Professor of Political Science, Hunter College,
CUNY; Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
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