Mohamed Elsherif

“Naturally, payment networks want to prevent fraudulent transactions, banks want to avoid bad loans, airlines want to avoid hijackings, and companies want to avoid hiring ineffective or untrustworthy people. From their point of view, the cost of a missed business opportunity is low, but the cost of a bad loan or a problematic employee is much higher, so it is natural for organizations to want to be cautious. If in doubt, they are better off saying no. However, as algorithmic decision-making becomes more widespread, someone who has (accurately or falsely) been labeled as risky by some algorithm may suffer a large number of those “no” decisions. Systematically being excluded from jobs, air travel, insurance coverage, property rental, financial services, and other key aspects of society is such a large constraint of the individual’s freedom that it has been called “algorithmic prison” [82]. In countries that respect human rights, the criminal justice system presumes innocence until proven guilty; on the other hand, automated systems can systematically and arbitrarily exclude a person from participating in society without any proof of guilt, and with little chance of appeal.”
― Martin Kleppmann, Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

“Obesity is a hormonal disorder of fat regulation. Insulin is the major hormone that drives weight gain, so the rational therapy is to lower insulin levels.”
― Jason Fung, The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss

“it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state”
― Martin Kleppmann, Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

“In his 1972 essay “The Humble Programmer,” Edsger W. Dijkstra said that “Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.”
― Steve Klabnik, The Rust Programming Language