Spotlight on Data: Data Pipelines and Power Imbalances—3 Cautionary Tales with Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein

Data science, visualization, and artificial intelligence are powerful tools, but they can reinforce structural inequalities like sexism and racism. How do we—CTOs, product managers, marketing managers, data scientists, developers, and others—navigate these ethical challenges?

The short answer: feminism—a vibrant body of thought and action from the past 50+ years that provides a model for analyzing and addressing the unequal distribution of power in the world as well as working toward data fairness.

In this Spotlight on Data, Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein discuss key concepts from their forthcoming book, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020), which applies feminist ideas to data science and outlines seven principles for using data in the service of greater justice. You’ll learn what “data feminism” means, how to evaluate your data practices through a feminist lens, and why feminism is not just for, about, or by women. You’ll also discover how the principles of data feminism apply to different stages of the data processing pipeline, from project inception to collection to cleaning and analysis to communication.

Recorded on August 19, 2019. See the original event page for resources for further learning or watch recordings of other past events.

O’Reilly Spotlight explores emerging business and technology topics and ideas through a series of one-hour interactive events. In live conversations, participants share their questions and ideas while hearing the experts’ unique perspectives, insights, fears, and predictions for the future.

In every edition of Spotlight on Data, you’ll learn about, discuss, and debate the tools, techniques, questions, and quandaries in the world of data. You’ll discover how successful companies leverage data effectively and how you can follow their lead to transform your organization and prepare for the Next Economy.