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The Cool Kids Corner: Current Considerations in Data Ethics

By Mark Horseman on
Read more about author Mark Horseman.

Hello! I’m Mark Horseman, and welcome to The Cool Kids Corner. This is my monthly check-in to share with you the people and ideas I encounter as a data evangelist with DATAVERSITY. (Read last month’s column here.) This month, we’re talking about data ethics. The technology shift since the global pandemic has given rise to a new way of being online. The new culture around the use of collaboration tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom has gifted society with a new way to interact with our peers, be that for better or worse. Also, the technology landscape has exploded with large language models (LLMs) that have changed the way people get the job done. There are new things to consider in data ethics, and ultimately, we’ll see what the Cool Kids are saying. 

Since the pandemic, the nature of how work is done has changed. Even in a traditional office setting, people interact and communicate differently than they have before. This culture shift was brought on by necessity and became a (mostly) welcome shift in office behavior. Many of us now have the flexibility to work from home or in a hybrid home-and-office mix. Consequently, our work collaboration has evolved to take advantage of tools like Teams, Slack, and even video-calling tools like Zoom. The mass adoption of these types of tools has been fascinating. What we’ve never considered as it relates to these tools: What is the environmental impact of their use? 

Specifically, what is the carbon footprint associated with retaining “Hey, wanna hit up that pizza place for lunch today?” in your collaboration tool for an extended period? Daragh O Brien enlightened me about this concept; he is a co-author along with Katherine O’Keefe of “Data Ethics: Practical Strategies for Implementing Ethical Information Management and Governance” (use code Dataversity20 for 20% off).  While collaboration tools have enabled wonderful social interaction in new ways, having in-person interactions in an office setting doesn’t result in scads of conversational data being stored for way too long a period. Heck, just being mindful of the default retention policies in your collaboration tools could save tons of carbon from the atmosphere.  

Ethics is often about the mindfulness of the things we use, their origins, strengths, and weaknesses – and this is very true for LLMs as well. When we look at using these tools, which often feel magical, we should consider the source and implications of using them. Consider OpenAI and its ChatGPT, one of the most popular generative AI tools out there. According to this Time article, its practices around training data were not so ethical. 

Consider also the environmental impact of hosting and using these services. The carbon footprint and water consumption around entering a prompt in a tool like this can be staggering. At the time of writing, it is estimated in this article as the same carbon footprint of 605 American citizens and likely increasing by the day. 

What are the Cool Kids saying about data ethics? The featured Cool Kid this month is Katrina Ingram, founder of Ethically Aligned AI. Katrina recently gave an excellent talk at Enterprise Analytics Online, focusing on data ethics. Katrina raised points on inherent bias in data and how that can affect the ethical use of data, not just for AI, but for all the reasons we use data. Give it a watch below. 

Check out some of Katrina’s other excellent contributions in the ethics space: 

Remember that you can meet and join Cool Kids like Katrina Ingram at DATAVERSITY events: 

Want to become one of the Cool Kids? All you need to do is share your ideas with the community! To be active in the community, come to DATAVERSITY webinars, participate in events, and network with like-minded colleagues. 

Next month – well, next year – we’ll be kicking off 2024 with some esoteric thoughts on why I believe data mesh initiatives breed successful data literacy in organizations. Stay tuned!