Some Brief Thoughts on AI, Ethics, and Data Visualization

There is so much hype about AI these days, and yet most popular tools are trained on data that is apparently stolen or otherwise unethically sourced.

To distinguish work from such unethical projects, one must put extra work to provide context and labels when communicating with colleagues and the general public.

Throwing out sexy catchphrases is lazy and irresponsible right now. If you are a researcher, you MUST distinguish your work from the “generate sales videos with chatGPT” hype that we’re all swamped with.

Yeah, a lot of folks in the data viz field, are focusing purely on the presentation of data.

However, especially when it comes to AI, given the tools currently being hyped, we really need to be asking more questions about where the data is coming from. Any responsible analyst/visualizer should be asking these questions regardless of AI.

Personally, I care about ethics, and the ethics of data collection and utilization. Life is so very short. And I don’t have time for promoting unethical data collection or tools built from them.

If your AI work is ethical, then please make it clear that it is, and how it is. Be the lifeline in the flood of hype. Be clear. Be considerate of everyone’s time and attention.

— this post is based on a thread I posted on the vis.social community instance.