Solon Barocas on Teaching Ethics in Data Science

In this episode, we speak with Solon Barocas, an Assistant Professor in Information Science at Cornell University. He is currently on leave at Microsoft Research in New York. But he will be returning to Cornell to teach. We ask him about a class on ethics in data science he has designed for aspiring computer scientists. Similar classes are burgeoning all around the country. How do you best infuse a culture of ethics in the field? What more do young professionals need to assess the social impact of their work? It’s important to make sure that students know to reject certain applications of machine learning, Barocas says. But it’s not enough to then expect them to go and change the world, he warns.