Prayers for Data Science

This semester, we pray according to this general pattern:

Log:

Week 1

  • Monday: for knowledge and discernment in love, towards justice
  • Wednesday: for those affected by data-driven recommendations
    • Philippains 4:8
    • People watching to be able to discern what is true, honorable, and pure, especially when that’s different than what grabs attention or agrees with assumptions
    • People creating videos to strive for what is just, right, commendable, especially when that’s different than what will get rewarded by the recommendation algorithms
    • People building data-driven systems to make them in ways that bend towards justice.
  • Friday: Psalm 124 from the Lectionary

Week 2

  • No class Monday (Labor Day)
  • Wednesday: for humility as we consider the limitations of data science
    • “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5)
  • Friday: Psalm 105 from the Lectionary
    • God works throughout history, over long periods of time. We prayed that we would be faithful in our small contributions and trust that God will work out his will in data science.

Week 3

  • Monday: Proverbs 12:15-20 (Truth)
    • That our minds not be deceitful (verse 20)
    • That we’d avoid confirmation bias and seek out good advice (verse 15)
    • GitHub Copilot adds: That we’d be careful with our words (verse 18)
  • Wednesday: didn’t prep a prayer.
  • Friday: Psalm 149 from the Lectionary
    • We again prayed for humility in our work, and to trust that God will bring about what is ultimately right.

Week 4

Week 5

  • Monday: We returned to the call to justice in Amos 5 and how this connects with how Prof Arnold ended up at Calvin.
  • Wednesday: We prayed for those whose work is threatened by automated mimics, such as screenwriters–on the occasion of the new WGA contract
  • Friday: Philippians 2:1-13 from the Lectionary

Week 6

  • Monday: We read Section 4 from the Belhar Confession.
  • Wednesday: We briefly discussed reidentification, using the figure from this article, and prayed for those whose privacy is threatened by data collection and aggregation.
  • Friday: Psalm 19 from the Lectionary

Week 7 and 8

  • Monday: We prayed in lament for the conflict in Israel, the pain of indigenous people in our country’s past, and the hottest summer on record
  • Wednesday: We prayed for rest in our break.
  • Friday (week 8) - Psalm 99 from the Lectionary

Week 9

  • Monday: had technical difficulties, so didn’t actually get to prayer. Class emphasized potential for harm in data science, emphasized the need for wisdom.
  • Wednesday: We showed some of the ways that predictive models can nudge human actions and opinions and prayed for protection.
  • Friday - Psalm 90 from the Lectionary

Week 10

  • Monday: We prayed for insight as things get more difficult to see, like in data wrangling modeling.
  • Wednesday: We reflected briefly on the White House Executive Order on AI and prayed for our elected leaders.
  • Friday: Psalm 34 from the Lectionary

Week 11

  • Monday: We prayed against greed and the love of money, with the help of Hebrews 13.
  • Friday: Psalm 107 from the Lectionary

Week 12

  • Monday: We reflected on Authors sue OpenAI for using copyrighted material and three aspects of public faith in action regarding Labor and Attribution:
    • Credit and compensate human workers
    • Beware of algorithmic intermediaries
    • Favor interacting with humans over machines, even when it’s more expensive or inconvenient?
  • Friday: Psalm 78 from the Lectionary

Final Few Weeks

Schedule was erratic, with Thanksgiving break and guest lectures. But:

  • We read Psalm 100 from the Lectionary
  • On the final class meeting, we prayed for us as data scientists to have insight into impacts of our work, discernment about it, and courage to do what is right.

Misc

Things GitHub Copilot has suggested: