Hi listeners. This is Lexy with the Data Science Ethics Podcast. Today, I’ve got a special announcement. We are gearing up to launch the members only podcast! As we teased in the introductory episode, the members only podcast explores data science ethics in pop culture. Our first topic is an episode of Star Trek: The […]

Episode 14: Ethical Obligations of a Data Translator – Show Notes Data Translator is a new title coming up in the business world over the last few years. This role is an intermediary between those requesting data science work and the data scientists. It’s sort of like a business analyst but for analytics projects. To […]

Episode 13: All Warmed Up with the Strava Heatmap – Show Notes Many people, civilians and military personnel alike, use fitness trackers every day to keep tabs on their health. They track everything from steps to heart rate to sleep cycles. With some manual input, they can also balance other aspects of personal health and […]

Episode 12: Blockchain Gives Us Hope – Show Notes In our last episode on Deepfake, we mentioned blockchain as a possible solution for identifying authentic versus altered audio and video. In today’s episode, we look at a number of ways that blockchain can and is already providing positive impact in the world. In addition to its […]

Episode 11: Deepfake – Show Notes Deepfake is the process of using computer vision to generate realistic fake audio or video where a performance from one person appears to be coming from another. This technology, once the brainchild of academia, was taken into the corporate world to help make image and audio editing more efficient. […]

Episode 10: Anticipate Adversaries – Show Notes Adversaries to an algorithm or system can come in many guises and at many times in the data science process. Their contexts vary from well-intentioned to nefarious. In this episode, we talk about different types of adversaries and how to anticipate adversaries. Well-Intentioned Adversaries Business users who have […]

Episode 9: Consider Context – Show Notes Algorithms do not operate in a vacuum. They operate in the context of a specific business, industry, problem, group of people, time frame, and more. Algorithms impact people and processes in the course of their use. The charge of an ethical data scientist is to develop solutions which […]

Episode 8: Love Ahoy! How OKCupid Tested Anchoring Bias – Show Notes In 2014, OKCupid revealed they had conducted an experiment to test the effects of showing false compatibility rates to users. The experiment was designed to test whether their algorithm was truly generating more meaningful conversations. There were two stages of the experiment. First, […]

Episode 7: Anchoring Bias – Show Notes Today we are talking about one aspect of why first impressions are so important – anchoring bias. Anchoring bias is when the first piece of information we receive about something (our first impression of ir) is weighted more heavily than it should be. Unlike statistical sampling biases, anchoring […]

Episode 6: Google Has a Gorilla Problem – Show Notes Google is a forerunner in many areas of data science and artificial intelligence. Yet one problem seems insurmountable for them – properly distinguishing between dark-skinned humans and gorillas. In 2015, an African-American software developer, Jacky Alciné, looking through their automatically-tagged images in Google Photos saw […]

Episode 5: Hired by Algorithm – Show Notes Finding and applying for jobs is a painful task – made worse by hiring bias pervasive in the process. In today’s episode, we consider advances in helping to eliminate hiring bias from job description to interview. We call out a few of the biases lurking in HR […]

Episode 4: Statistical Sampling Bias – Show Notes Bias sneaks in to algorithms and data science from multiple sources. Primarily, it comes from statistical or cognitive biases that then lead to biased conclusions or results. In today’s episode, we look at four types statistical sampling bias to understand how biased samples skew algorithms. [2:54] Selection […]

Episode 3: Many Unhappy Retail Returns – Show Notes Retail returns hurt the bottom line. They cause headaches for customer service, stocking, and profitability. It doesn’t help that some people have promoted using returns policies as a way of renting items not actually needed or wanted without being out of pocket. As much as that […]

Episode 2: The Data Science Process – Show Notes Decisions made at every stage of the data science process can impact the ethics of the outcome. From data selection to hypotheses tested to interpretation, data scientists must carefully evaluate the implications of their models and outputs. In today’s episode, we delve into the data science […]

Data Science Ethics Podcast – Episode 1 Show Notes As a starting point, we’re laying some groundwork. In this first informational episode, we talk about algorithms – what they are, what they do, and why they’re important to data science ethics. Algorithms perform a set of steps on inputs to get to an output. In […]

Welcome to the Data Science Ethics Podcast! We’re thrilled that you’re here and interested in exploring ethical discussions with us. Data Science Ethics Podcast – Episode 0 Show Notes In this first episode, we set up why we’re talking about data science ethics, what we will cover in the podcast, and the framework of how […]