Virginia Eubanks

“We all live in the digital poorhouse. We have always lived in the world we built for the poor. We create a society that has no use for the disabled or the elderly, and then are cast aside when we are hurt or grow old. We measure human worth based only on the ability to earn a wage, and suffer in a world that undervalues care and community. We base our economy on exploiting the labor of racial and ethnic minorities, and watch lasting inequities snuff out human potential. We see the world as inevitably riven by bloody competition and are left unable to recognize the many ways we cooperate and lift each other up.

But only the poor lived in the common dorms of the county poorhouse. Only the poor were put under the diagnostic microscope of scientific clarity. Today, we all live among the digital traps we have laid for the destitute.”
― Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

“When automated decision-making tools are not built to explicitly dismantle structural inequities, their speed and scale intensify them.”
― Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor