Data Ethics Emergency Drill: A Toolbox for Discussing Responsible AI for Industry Teams

Researchers urge technology practitioners such as data scientists to considerthe impacts and ethical implications of algorithmic decisions. However, unlikeprogramming, statistics, and data management, discussion of ethicalimplications is rarely included in standard data science training. To begin toaddress this gap, we designed and tested a toolbox called the data ethicsemergency drill (DEED) to help data science teams discuss and reflect on theethical implications of their work. The DEED is a roleplay of a fictionalethical emergency scenario that is contextually situated in the team's specificworkplace and applications. This paper outlines the DEED toolbox and describesthree studies carried out with two different data science teams thatiteratively shaped its design. Our findings show that practitioners can applylessons learnt from the roleplay to real-life situations, and how the DEEDopened up conversations around ethics and values.