Examining Relationships Between Data Ethics and Sociopolitical Dynamics
In this semester’s Data Ethics course, students are working on semester-long research projects investigating how U.S. race relations, the COVID-19 pandemic, and divided democracy in the United States intersect with issues of data ethics such as autonomy, bias, and privacy.
Ethics Lab postdoctoral fellow Dr. Marcello Antosh teaches the course and noted that the goal of the engagement is to encourage students to understand the multifaceted nature of many ethical concerns. Antosh combines lectures, discussions, and visualizations to help students imagine these perspectives more clearly.
“We want students to approach ethical issues from different angles,” Antosh explained. “One angle is just straightforward analysis where we examine ethical issues carefully, and make useful distinctions, but another is to explore other modes of representing what matters. How are you imagining these values or these issues related to each other?”
Antosh explained that contact tracing is one of many data ethics issues that are ripe for being explored from multiple perspectives. For while contact tracing initiatives present opportunities to combat the COVID-19 pandemics and others in the future, they also present potential threats to privacy and civil rights.
The social and political upheaval of recent months has certainly affected student research interests, according to Antosh. Many students are considerably riveted by election-related issues. The racial turmoil that has plagued the country for years — which has been painfully pertinent since the murder of George Floyd in May — has also influenced student projects.
“Sometimes, just noticing and calling attention to an issue is a key step to progress.”
“Students are definitely appreciating the power structures and stereotypes that perpetuate bias and discrimination. Unfortunately, and all too easily, biases and injustices present in society find their way into the new digital tools of today. Algorithms reflect and sometimes amplify these biases,” Antosh said.
As the semester continues, students’ research will deepen, and Antosh hopes that students come to grasp the ethical complexities inherent in real world problems, even when it might be difficult to verbalize the implicit assumptions they may hold concerning questions of ethics. He also noted that he hopes students will be able to situate these problems in broader sociopolitical contexts.
“I want them to have greater facility talking through ethically complicated issues, to be able to explain and tease out the nuance,” Antosh said. “I also want them to have greater confidence raising questions and being open and honest when they just don’t know what should be done but when they have identified there’s an issue that requires further thinking. Sometimes, just noticing and calling attention to an issue is a key step to progress.”