Ethical judgement in data science

By Data Tricks, 4 September 2020

• Blog

In recent weeks, the important of ethical judgement in data science applications has made headlines around the UK, after u-turns in how grades were awarded for GCSEs, A Levels and Scottish Nationals, Higher and Advanced Highers.

Following our published article on the 5 most important skills of a data scientist, it’s perhaps a good time to add ethical judgement skills to this list. As data scientists, it is easy to get carried away with a focus on improving a model’s accuracy or predictive power. However, recent events have underlined the importance of taking into account potential bias – both direct and indirect – in any existing data or the outcome of a model.

Last year we published an article on this very subject – Ethics of machine learning in education in which it is argued that those involved in analytics, statistics or data science in education should be acutely aware of the potential to introduce bias.

Tags: education, ethics

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