Ethics Education in Data Science
Data scientists in academia and industry are increasingly identifying the importance of incorporating ethics into data science curricula. Lately, a group of faculty and students assembled at New York University before the annual FAT* conference to discuss the potentials and challenges of teaching data science ethics, and to learn from one another’s experiences in the classroom. This post is the first of two which will encapsulate the discussions had at this workshop. There is common agreement that data science ethics should be taught, but less consensus about what its objectives should be or how they should be pursued. As the field is so promising, there is considerable room for groundbreaking thinking about what data science ethics ought to mean. In some respects, its goal may be the formation of “future citizens” of data science who are invested in the welfare of their communities and the world, and comprehend the social and political role of data science therein. However th...