Other ethical considerations
We covered many of the ethical concerns with data science already, but there are a host of others. Of course, there are common-sense ethics, such as don't steal data or do something purposely malicious. However, other more subtle issues are present as well. In this section, we'll look at:
- The transparency of ML systems
- Cherry-picking information for statistics
- Conflicts of interest
- Web scraping
- Terms of service
- Robot rights for AI
When we create an ML system, it may or may not be in society's best interest to publish the algorithm and supporting work. For example, the facial recognition algorithms used for police may benefit from more transparency and openness, but publishing ML related to law enforcement could enable criminals to game the system.
Another example is the COMPAS system, which is software used by US courts to determine if someone is likely to commit crimes again. On the...