December 22, 2022
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The Rebel Tech Newsletter is our safe place to critique data and tech algorithms, processes and systems. We highlight a recent data article in the news and share resources to help you dig deeper in understand how our digital world operates. DataedX Group helps data educators, scholars and practitioners learn how to make responsible data connections. We help you source remedies and interventions based on the needs of your team or organization.

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IN DATA NEWS

2022 is coming to an end but data ethics, privacy, regulations and compliance issues in the data industry have NOT come to an end. There have been remarkable developments in the data industry, some of which deserve a standing ovation but we must never lose sight of the potential danger these new developments could have to us and our future, especially to people from marginalized groups. This holiday, take time to read up on data ethics, privacy, and regulations. Hey! You can also order my book :)

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Recapping 2022 RTN in style

I’m sharing excerpts from the most-read newsletters that landed in your inbox this year. Enjoy and Happy New Year 2023!
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• In January, the five relevant themes and principles for consideration within data ethics from A Guide for Ethical Data Science. Of course I had commentary for each one. But #3 (Apply and maintain professional competence) was my favorite: “Ha! This principle insists that practitioners should comply with best industry and professional practices and applying analytical rigor. Well, IMHO, the industry hasn't put much effort into confronting non-ethical design in open source and commercial software. Granted, there's more conversation now, but the data, computing and AI industries are spinning their wheels rather than doing deep substantive work. Well, besides mostly Black and Brown people who put their careers on the line to do the work.”

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• In April, I shared my thoughts on the Context Aware Machine Learning conference paper and the cornerstone of the idea that ML approaches can deal with context. This last paragraph sums it up nicely: “We, as people, make connections and build relationships constantly. We update our understanding with more data that we've contextualized. But somehow, the machine learning research community insists that these states of understanding can be captured by mathematical formulas. The decisions our mind makes happens so fast. Considering that we process everything around us all the time, it befuddles me on why they are chasing an impossibility. And if it were possible, how would it benefit our digital society to have such mathematical representations of complicated conditions? ML doesn't have a good track record so far.”

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• In May, I put a spotlight on the ridiculousness of AI’s ability to predict emotions. The Protocol article gave much needed and interesting insight into the monetization of AI-ing emotion detection. The money angle had me shooketh. I couldn’t help but comment: “Let me get this all the way straight. Companies are building AI-powered human emotion manipulation tools that are garnering them $400M in their Series E funding at a valuation of $2.5 billion. Say what now? And this technology is specifically designed to help sales people sell better by doing the job they are being paid to do. Come again?!?”

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• And in October for RTN’s 1-year anniversary, I rated the recently-released U.S. Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights framework. Now the 73-page document is dense but thoughtful and informative. I read (most) of it and had this to say “Let's add this blueprint to the WIN column. Is it perfect? Nope. But this is a solid starting point. Guardrails for acceptable and unacceptable data, AI and other tech operations have been documented. Specific agencies have been identified to lead regulation, compliance and enforcement efforts. The U.S. government has constructed a framework that organizations can integrate into their internal business operations. I can envision internal customized worksheets and checklists under each of these five principles for any organization. I can envision public-facing data, AI and tech explainer content as a campaign to inform the general public of their digital rights.I'd rate this blueprint a 4.5 out of 5.”

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UPSKILLING & RESKILLING CORNER

[RECAP] We've walked through a tweet analyses of my tweets performed by data analyst Joy Victor in this section. So if you have 2K or more tweets over 2+years, you can join the learning journey yourself by creating your own tweet dataset.

Over the past few months, we’ve shared the following major steps

1. Data collection: We first of all retrieved Dr. Brandeis’ tweets from Twitter using the “Request archive” feature.
2. Data cleaning: This was the most rigorous process in the tweet analysis was to clean the data so it would be easy to derive insights from the data. The data cleaning was done using Python and mostly regex.
3. Data visualization: Now to the fun part! Any data visualization tool can be used to derive insights from this data, but I chose Tableau since it’s my favorite. First of, I used Tableau to explore the data and discover important insights. With what I discovered, I put together a dashboard that told a story of Dr. Brandeis's Twitter Journey. How frequently she tweets, when she tweets, her favorite tweets, favorite hashtags and so much more!

Below is a picture of what the final dashboard looks like. You can check out the interactive features on our Tableau Public. I hope you enjoyed this data analysis journey so far, and hopefully, you create something similar with your own data 🙂

See our Tableau Public dashboard

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A WORD FOR BLACK WOMEN IN DATA

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I harp on resting this holiday season and participating in daily self-care because this is one crucial skill we don’t pass on from one generation to the next. Traditionally we’re the only be you.

Remember that you are a gift.

As always, stay smart, appreciate your value and be loved.

The BWD Community is here for you, sis! It includes a BWD Forum for member conversations and resource sharing, Professional Development Library (my 2 teachable courses are already in there) and Event Replays (my session with Ryan Cox is now available too).

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You can join the BWD community at the monthly ($35), quarterly ($90) or annual ($350) level to access the conversations, resources and upcoming BWD events. We're gonna thrive in this data industry together.

Become a BWD member

Daily-ish rest routine suggestion: Clear your mind by listening to the sounds you can create on the Atmosphere app -- it's free, btw. They offer a variety of environments from beach to east Asian that you can find the combination of sounds to sooth your active mind. Set it for as minutes as you need to relax and restore.

Follow us on social

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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Women in Analytics After Hours the Podcast | Out Now!

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On December 7th, the ladies of WIA After Hours and I discussed my new book, "Data Conscience: Algorithmic Siege on our Humanity". We also took a deep dive into the concept of algorithmic destruction, effective implementation & its role in the future of AI regulation. You can stream it via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and/or iHeartRadio.

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Click Here to visit WIA's website and archive of past episodes!

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​CLICK HERE to grab your copy of my book, Data Conscience: Algorithmic Siege on our Humanity!

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LAUGHING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

Stay Rebel Techie,

Brandeis

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