Author: Vindu Goel; Publisher: The New York Times; Publication Year: 2014. The following article focuses on issues prompted by controversial studies by Facebook. The first, in 2014, measured how users’ emotions were impacted by an adjustment to the kind of content appearing in their news feed. The second, from 2010, sent notifications to users reminding them to vote, and found that notifications that showed a list…
Author: Valerie Schneider; Publisher: Columbia Human Rights Law Review; Publication Year: 2020. The following article is a very granular deep dive into how artificial intelligence (AI) can lead to discrimination in housing and how this relates to Fair Housing Act “disparate impact” jurisprudence. The motivation for the article was a proposed rule from HUD that would have immunized landlords using algorithms from disparate impact fair housing claims…
Author: N/A; Publisher: United Nations News; Publication Year: 2020. The following article discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) development is especially problematic for countries where governments do not have the ability to effectively regulate consumer privacy or misinformation. International AI regulation will probably be necessary to curb the problem. Social media companies are incentivized to supply…
Author: Tom Jongen; Publisher: Medium; Publication Year: 2021. The following article discusses how if any company uses customer data to make customer-facing decisions, there are ethical issues that need to be considered. Also, it asks us to consider “When ‘Know Your Customer’ goes too far;” and the issues related to Facebook/Cambridge Analytica political influence scandal from 2016 provide a clear…
Author: Sigal Samuel; Publisher: Vox; Publication Year: 2019. The following article talks about the self-driving Uber cars. It points to a very important ethical issue in data science i.e. the issue that self-driving Uber cars so biased that they cannot detect a dark-skinned pedestrian for stopping. This shows that algorithms are inherently biased and that is probably because historically white males in positions of power…
Author: Sheana S. Bull, PhD, Lindsey T. Breslin, MSSW, Erin E. Wright, MA, Sandra R. Black, DVM, Deborah Levine, MA, John S. Santelli, MD; Publisher: Journal of Pediatric Psychology; Publication Year: 2011. In the following article, Table 1 is a very helpful resource to look at as a data professional when considering ethics. This article, and the table referenced, is discussing a case study where Facebook tried to deliver a sexual education program to youth and young adults. This is a very common area in the data industry where an algorithm is made to send…
Author: Jennifer Priestly; Publisher: SAS Users; Publication Year: 2018. The following article discusses how the data ecosystem is evolving. Data used to be small, structured, and static. Then it became large, unstructured, and in motion. Now it is massive, integrated, and dynamic. The issues related to ethics are much more complex than they used to be. Why do data scientists need to understand ethics? Well, a few people can…
Author: Sara Savat; Publisher: The Source; Publication Year: 2021. The following article discusses the ethical dilemma that businesses are now faced with regarding the use of consumer data and tools that are built by companies like Facebook. It points out the need for not only profit- and data-driven decision-making, but also for values-based decision-making. It also argues that there is a long-term business…
Author: Roxana Willis; Publisher: SAGE Journals; Publication Year: 2017. The following article examines the difficulties of obtaining informed consent online through a Facebook case study. It is proposed that there are at least 2 ways informed consent could be waived in research: first, if the data are public, and second, if the data are textual…
Author: Nicolas Kayser-Bril; Publisher: AlgorithmWatch; Publication Year: 2020. The following article attempts to explore what drives the Instagram algorithm’s recommendations on people’s timelines led to a serious response form Facebook looking to shut it down. While it was stated to be in the interest of user privacy, the project was designed in a way that guarded this already. This attempt to explore transparency was met…