WHAT TO DO WITH DATA?
Sheetz, Dick’s talk ethics, responsibility at inaugural Pitt event
To live in 2024 is to accept, through terms and conditions and sometimes more implicit systems, that data is being collected on your walks, talks and purchases. Data has become a ubiquitous and necessary part of how businesses and governments operate, prompting ethical questions about its collection and use.
It’s happening in city government, at the gas station and in e-commerce.
Last Friday, representatives from each field tried their best to tackle the questions publicly, during the first “Data Science Day” at the University of Pittsburgh.
“The quantities of data that we’ve collected have increased exponentially,” said Bridget Fitzpatrick, manager of data science at Dick’s Sporting Goods. “And what we do with that data has become a more and more important question.
“We have to put a lot of thought into what’s appropriate and what is valuable to our customers, and where we should give our customers the choice on what to share with us,” she said.
That prompted a candid question from Chris Belasco, chief data officer for the city of Pittsburgh: “Do you know I shop there?”
On the city government side, Mr. Belasco said, “data analytics communication can help people understand the value of our work — why we’re planting the trees here today versus in another place.”
And for in-person retail, Mary Beth Green, chief innovation officer for Sheetz, said data can improve the customer experience and improve inventory planning.
“Each one of these requires that responsible lens because it involves people and impacts on our whole environment,” she said. “Nobody wants their data on the black web.”
The event was lightly attended by students, with an audience of 100 made up mostly of Pitt faculty and staff. There was also a table full of engineers from Allegheny County government.
Throughout the day, speakers demonstrated the dangers of data — whether putting too much trust in the wrong trend, or using datasets with outdated information.
During the pandemic, for instance, the city was trying to sort restaurants for outdoor dining permits, when Mr. Belasco said he came across an unexpected tenant: Three Rivers Stadium, which was demolished in 2001.
Alfred Spector, a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a senior adviser at Blackstone, gave the keynote.
He said data has become essential in the investment space, where more than 200 firms rely on Blackstone, a private equity firm, to make more money. He also had advice for the government employees in the room, who worried some of the data analysis was too sophisticated.
“Just get started,” Mr. Spector told them. “Don’t overthink it.”
Pitt recently launched a new master’s degree in data science program, with the first cohort starting March 13.
The online degree, designed to be part time, takes 20 to 30 months to complete and costs $15,000. To make the field more accessible, it is open to people with any bachelor’s degree.
Across the college, faculty members are engaging with Pitt’s “Responsible Data Science” initiative.
The focus is a recognition of how many disciplines benefit from data, as the world becomes increasingly reliant on it, said Bruce Childers, dean of Pitt’s School of Computing and Information.
“Data areas are in such high demand,” he said. “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s one of the fastest growing occupations.”
Only two other professions are growing faster, he said: nurse practitioners and wind turbine service technicians.