While teaching part of the University of the Witwatersrand's data science degree, Dr Helen Robertson, whose philosophical doctorate research primarily looked at Immanuel Kant's epistemology, recently found herself becoming interested in contemporary epistemology questions. "Some of the old philosophical questions apply to data science, to machine learning and artificial intelligence," says Robertson.

"In terms of ethics, this is a relatively new field, both in a practical sense and in research centres. It's been fun to be involved in these new fields of philosophical research, especially given that many philosophical questions are very old."