Figure Eight’s Annual Data Scientist Report is now available. Figure Eight (formerly Crowdflower) has been taking the pulse of the data science community since 2015, and this year’s report focuses on both data scientists’ careers and compares their thoughts on AI with those of ethics professionals. Some of the findings include:

• 89% of data scientists love their job, up from 67% in 2015
• 49% of data scientists get contacted at least once per week for a new job
• Data scientists are significantly more inclined (75%) to believe AI will be good in the world, compared with 39% of ethics professionals

A lot has changed since the company’s original Data Science Report in 2015. Machine learning projects are multiplying and more and more data is required to power them. Data science and machine learning  jobs are LinkedIn’s faster growing jobs. And the internet is creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of  data each day to power all of it.

Another thing that’s changed since 2015? The community is grappling with more ethical issues than  ever before. Data privacy, of course, has always been a paramount concern. But as AI is increasingly  used to make big decisions like medical diagnoses and courtroom sentencing, these ethical considerations require careful debate. Understanding what those involved think about the technology  they’re pioneering felt important. In fact, Figure Eight asked 500 ethical professionals–like doctors, clergy, and  police officers–how they felt about AI and contrast their opinions with a core constituency of data scientists near the end of the report.

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