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How Far Does a Data Scientist’s Responsibility Go?

October 29, 2026 · 51 min

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How far does a data scientist’s responsibility reach? Does it stop at building an accurate model, or does it extend to what the model does once it’s in use? Ben Green, professor at the University of Michigan, former data scientist for the City of Boston, and author of Algorithmic Realism: Data Science Practices to Promote Social Justice, thinks it extends a long way: being a good data scientist means thinking about overall impact. I press him on whether being good at data science and being an ethically good data scientist are the same thing, whether data scientists are in a position to see how their work will play out, what to do when they disagree about what a good outcome is, and how much we should ask of individual data scientists versus their field and the systems they work in.



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