My name is Sue. Data Meets Humanity was founded in 2021, while I was working on my MS in Business Analytics. My area of interest is data science with a preference for applications in the social sciences. Of particular interest to me is how big data and technology generally is impacting society and the individual.

As a former quality assurance engineer, the move things and break things mentality within the software development environment concerns me when it comes to technologies with a profound impact on society. I think technology can be a wonderful thing, making our lives so much better, but I also believe, depending on the societal and/or psychological impact on humans, those of us in technology need to do a better job assessing the risks of these technologies we are creating. Will the technology actually save humanity, or will we accelerate our demise. I believe we must do a proper risk assessment of these technologies. Will the transformations save so many lives that the risk is worth it?

My perspective is that the people making these decisions believe any risk is worth it because they are not the ones who will be the most adversely impacted. It will be the poor and the minorities, the most vulnerable, who are most impacted. Think of face recognition and the inability of facial recognition systems to accurately identify darker skin tones. The outcome can range from a simple inconvenience of being pulled from a flight until the issue is resolved to someone dying at the hands of the police. If white people, of which I am one, endured the downsides and risks that black and brown people do, these technologies would either be regulated, or not in use.

My Mission

My mission is two-fold. First, I will discuss many of the issues that concern me in technological development. Second, I will also display data projects, related to the individual and society, that I am working on. Feel free to send your comments to join in on the discussion.