To work for society, data scientists need a hippocratic oath with teeth

One person unsurprised by the unfolding data scandals surrounding Cambridge Analytica and Facebook is Cathy O'Neil. In 2016 Cathy published her book Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. In the book O'Neil reveals how a silent bureaucracy governed by algorithms and big data is emerging across every corner of society. This new bureaucracy is increasingly deciding who gets a job, who gets credit (and at what rate), who goes to prison and what information people read. Some of these systems may be making accurate decisions. However, Cathy argues that accuracy and efficiency alone are not sufficient metrics for success. Fairness, equity and other social considerations need to be built into the algorithms.