Author: Aisulu Omar
Publisher: Towards Data Science
Publication Year: 2022
Summary: The following article discusses how data scientists should be more cognizant of the role they play in organizations. Their skill set as a tool can be potentially used by malicious actors. One way to counter this is to ensure representation in the training dataset in order to avoid bias. The article mentions “Weapons of Math Destruction” about how algorithms hard-coded racist outcomes when trying to predict recidivism rates. Data Scientists should be aware of the power structure of the organization they are working at. Biases are further exacerbated because in the profession, 66% of workers are male and 65.2% are white. Data Scientists should be aware of for-profit companies merely trying to automate their products or decision-making process without much care for the negative consequences.
