Develops methods for fair classification under linear disparity constraints.
problem Disparate impacts of machine learning algorithms on protected groups.
method Bayes-optimal fair classification methods via pre-, in-, and post-processing.
result Explicit forms of Bayes-optimal fair classifiers under linear disparity measures.
Paper explores fair classification with bounded disparity using finite datasets.
problem Ensuring fairness in binary classification with protected groups.
method Minimax optimal approach with fairness constraints and demographic disparity control.
result Proposes FairBayes-DDP+ method that achieves minimax lower bound on fairness-aware excess risk.
Selective classification can worsen accuracy disparities between groups.
problem Selective classification can magnify existing accuracy disparities between various groups.
method Study of margin distribution and distributionally-robust models.
result Selective classification can uniformly improve each group on distributionally-robust models.
We combine multi-task learning and semi-supervised learning by inducing a joint embedding space between disparate label spaces and learning transfer functions between label embeddings, enabling us to jointly leverage unlabelled data and auxiliary, annotated datasets. We evaluate our approach on a variety of sequence cl…
This work builds a fair classification algorithm that abstains from making predictions.
problem Building a fair classification algorithm that incorporates human decision-making and avoids disparities.
method Formalizes the problem of risk minimization under fairness and abstention constraints, derives the optimal classifier, and proposes a post-processing algorithm using unlabeled data.
result The proposed algorithm achieves fairness and abstention guarantees independently of the initial classifier, provided sufficient unlabeled data is available.
DCEM algorithm reduces bias in machine learning models trained on selective labels.
problem Bias in machine learning models trained on selective labels.
method Disparate Censorship Expectation-Maximization (DCEM) algorithm.
result DCEM improves bias mitigation without sacrificing discriminative performance.
New framework reduces strategic manipulation cost for minority groups in fair classification.
problem Strategic manipulation disparities in fair classification.
method Constrained optimization framework that constructs classifiers to reduce strategic manipulation cost for minority groups.
result Empirically, the approach reduces strategic manipulation cost for minority groups over multiple real-world datasets.
Manifold matching works to identify embeddings of multiple disparate data spaces into the same low-dimensional space, where joint inference can be pursued. It is an enabling methodology for fusion and inference from multiple and massive disparate data sources. In this paper we focus on a method called Canonical Correla…
Study evaluates when splitting classifiers can improve performance despite disparate treatment.
problem Impact of disparate treatment in classification models.
method Comparison of split classifiers and group-blind classifiers, quantifying performance improvement.
result Proves an equivalent expression for the benefit-of-splitting which can be efficiently computed.
Automated data-driven decision making systems are increasingly being used to assist, or even replace humans in many settings. These systems function by learning from historical decisions, often taken by humans. In order to maximize the utility of these systems (or, classifiers), their training involves minimizing the e…
FairWASP optimizes training data to reduce disparities across subgroups.
problem Reducing disparities in model outputs across different subgroups in machine learning.
method A novel pre-processing approach that minimizes Wasserstein distance to the original dataset while satisfying demographic parity.
result Integer weights are optimal, allowing FairWASP to be understood as duplicating or eliminating samples.
When the performance of a machine learning model varies over groups defined by sensitive attributes (e.g., gender or ethnicity), the performance disparity can be expressed in terms of the probability distributions of the input and output variables over each group. In this paper, we exploit this fact to reduce the dispa…
Where machine-learned predictive risk scores inform high-stakes decisions, such as bail and sentencing in criminal justice, fairness has been a serious concern. Recent work has characterized the disparate impact that such risk scores can have when used for a binary classification task. This may not account, however, fo…
Privacy affects fairness in classification models, but not drastically.
problem The impact of differential privacy on fairness in classification models.
method Theoretical analysis proving Lipschitz continuity of fairness measures and a non-asymptotic bound on fairness levels.
result Privacy impacts fairness, but not significantly as the number of samples increases.
In the context of machine learning, disparate impact refers to a form of systematic discrimination whereby the output distribution of a model depends on the value of a sensitive attribute (e.g., race or gender). In this paper, we propose an information-theoretic framework to analyze the disparate impact of a binary cla…
Semi-supervised learning benefits the rich more than the poor, affecting fairness.
problem Disparate impact of semi-supervised learning on different sub-populations.
method Theoretical and empirical analysis of a broad family of SSL algorithms using pseudo-labels.
result Semi-supervised learning benefits the rich more than the poor, potentially violating fairness.
What does it mean for an algorithm to be biased? In U.S. law, unintentional bias is encoded via disparate impact, which occurs when a selection process has widely different outcomes for different groups, even as it appears to be neutral. This legal determination hinges on a definition of a protected class (ethnicity, g…
Study reveals class disparities in balanced datasets through spectral imbalance.
problem Class disparities in balanced datasets are overlooked despite model performance gaps.
method Developed a theoretical framework and studied 11 encoders to diagnose spectral imbalance.
result Identified spectral imbalance as a source of class disparities in balanced datasets.
This paper studies fairness and privacy in federated learning, proposing algorithms to balance both.
problem Joint impact of differential privacy and fairness in federated classification.
method Proposes FDP-Fair and CDP-Fair algorithms for demographic disparity constrained classification under federated differential privacy.
result Established theoretical guarantees on privacy, fairness, and excess risk control.
The paper studies and mitigates accuracy disparity in regression models.
problem Accuracy disparity between different demographic subgroups in high-stakes domains.
method Error decomposition theorem and distribution alignment algorithm.
result The proposed algorithm effectively mitigates accuracy disparity while maintaining predictive power.
Paper studies fair classification of functional data.
problem Mitigating disparities in functional data classification.
method Unified framework for fairness-aware functional classification.
result Established theoretical guarantees on fairness and excess risk controls.
A membership inference attack (MIA) against a machine-learning model enables an attacker to determine whether a given data record was part of the model's training data or not. In this paper, we provide an in-depth study of the phenomenon of disparate vulnerability against MIAs: unequal success rate of MIAs against diff…
Following related work in law and policy, two notions of disparity have come to shape the study of fairness in algorithmic decision-making. Algorithms exhibit treatment disparity if they formally treat members of protected subgroups differently; algorithms exhibit impact disparity when outcomes differ across subgroups,…
Study decomposes racial healthcare disparities via shifts in mediator distributions.
problem Racial disparities in healthcare expenditures and their underlying drivers.
method Framework decomposing disparities into mediator distribution shifts and residual components, using MEPS data.
result Substantial disparities persist even when mediators are equalized, suggesting unmeasured or structural factors.
Bayesian model identifies health disparities in disease progression.
problem Health disparities bias disease progression models.
method Interpretable Bayesian model accounting for three disparities.
result Model identifies and corrects for health disparities.
Study shows explanation disparities in machine learning models are influenced by data and model properties.
problem Disparities in post-hoc machine learning explanation methods across race and gender.
method Simulations and experiments on a real-world dataset to assess challenges to explanation disparities.
result Increased covariate shift, concept shift, and omission of covariates increase explanation disparities, especially for neural network models.
Study shows label errors impact model disparity metrics, proposing mitigation methods.
problem Impact of label errors on model disparity metrics.
method Empirical study, characterizing label error effects; proposing estimation and relabeling methods.
result Label errors significantly affect model disparity metrics, particularly for minority groups.
Proposes a method to quantify and decompose disparity in ML models, separating exempt and non-exempt components.
problem Quantifying disparity in ML models, especially when certain features are exempted due to their critical importance.
method Information-theoretic decomposition into exempt and non-exempt components, satisfying desirable properties.
result Proposes a measure of non-exempt disparity that satisfies all desirable properties, and shows impossibility results for observational measures.
A new CVaR test reduces group performance disparity detection complexity.
problem Detecting performance disparities across multiple sensitive groups in ML models.
method Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) testing to reduce sample complexity.
result Sample complexity reduced exponentially to be at most the square root of the number of groups.
The paper provides CI for test unfairness of group-fairness-aware classifiers trained with online SGD.
problem Ensuring fairness in machine learning models trained with stochastic gradient descent.
method Developed an online multiplier bootstrap method to estimate CI for test unfairness of DI and DM-aware linear classifiers.
result Asymptotic Central Limit Theorem holds for CI estimation of DI and DM-aware models.
End-to-end framework learns precise disparity for activity recognition.
problem Precise portrayal of intraclass disparity in activity recognition.
method Knowledge-directed adversarial learning framework with two competitive encoding distributions.
result Robust and generalizable performance on HAR benchmark datasets.
Assessing the fairness of a decision making system with respect to a protected class, such as gender or race, is challenging when class membership labels are unavailable. Probabilistic models for predicting the protected class based on observable proxies, such as surname and geolocation for race, are sometimes used to …
Differential privacy (DP) is a popular mechanism for training machine learning models with bounded leakage about the presence of specific points in the training data. The cost of differential privacy is a reduction in the model's accuracy. We demonstrate that in the neural networks trained using differentially private …
Algorithmic decision making process now affects many aspects of our lives. Standard tools for machine learning, such as classification and regression, are subject to the bias in data, and thus direct application of such off-the-shelf tools could lead to a specific group being unfairly discriminated. Removing sensitive …
We provide the asymptotic distribution of the major indexes used in the statistical literature to quantify disparate treatment in machine learning. We aim at promoting the use of confidence intervals when testing the so-called group disparate impact. We illustrate on some examples the importance of using confidence int…
In recent years, automated data-driven decision-making systems have enjoyed a tremendous success in a variety of fields (e.g., to make product recommendations, or to guide the production of entertainment). More recently, these algorithms are increasingly being used to assist socially sensitive decision-making (e.g., to…
The paper examines how adversarial robustness affects accuracy disparity across different classes.
problem Understanding the impact of adversarial robustness on accuracy disparity across different classes.
method Linear classifiers under a Gaussian mixture model, decomposing the impact into inherent and imbalance effects.
result Adversarial robustness consistently degrades standard accuracy in balanced classes, but the class imbalance ratio plays a different role in accuracy disparity.
The paper examines bias in ML models using the Adult dataset.
problem Understanding and mitigating bias in machine learning models.
method Mathematical framework for fair learning, Disparate Impact index, and evaluation of bias reduction methods.
result Some common bias reduction methods are ineffective.
Machine Learning techniques have become pervasive across a range of different applications, and are now widely used in areas as disparate as recidivism prediction, consumer credit-risk analysis and insurance pricing. The prevalence of machine learning techniques has raised concerns about the potential for learned algor…
Paper tackles fairness in CCA by minimizing correlation disparity error.
problem Fairness issues in CCA.
method Framework to minimize correlation disparity error in CCA.
result Reduces correlation disparity error without sacrificing CCA accuracy.
New method evaluates multiple social disparities using machine learning.
problem Reduction of educational disparities across multiple dimensions.
method Triply-Robust Machine Learning Approach for Causal Decomposition Analysis.
result Simultaneous interventions across multiple domains reduce disparities.
Enhances graph classification with multiple graphs.
problem Improving graph classification accuracy with multiple graphs.
method Graph fusion embedding using encoder embedding.
result The method consistently improves classification accuracy for large vertex sets.
Poisoning attacks can undermine fairness in machine learning models.
problem Poisoning attacks can introduce classification disparities among different groups in data.
method Developed a gradient-based poisoning attack framework to target algorithmic fairness.
result Demonstrated the effectiveness of poisoning attacks in both white-box and black-box scenarios.
Study highlights fairness issues in travel behavior prediction models.
problem Ethical challenges in travel behavior analysis using machine learning.
method Operationalized computational fairness by equality of opportunity; compared DNN and DCM; introduced absolute correlation regularization.
result Both DNN and DCM predict disparities across social groups, with DNN outperforming DCM in prediction disparities.
Conformal prediction sets can lead to unfair outcomes.
problem Disparate impact in decision-making with conformal prediction sets.
method Experiments with human participants to demonstrate disparate impact and propose equalizing set sizes across groups.
result Providing prediction sets that satisfy Equalized Coverage increases disparate impact compared to marginal coverage.
The paper analyzes how deep neural networks handle noisy labels and finds disparate impacts.
problem Disparate impacts of noisy labels on instances with different representation frequencies.
method Quantifying harms, analyzing solutions, and comparing their impacts on different frequency instances.
result Existing solutions lead to disparate treatments, benefiting higher-frequency instances more.
The paper introduces return parity for fairness in MDPs, addressing delayed and adverse effects.
problem Fairness in MDPs for dynamic domains with delayed and adverse effects.
method Proposes return parity, decomposes return disparity, and develops algorithms for state visitation distributional alignment.
result The proposed algorithms can successfully close the disparity gap while maintaining policy performance.
New method reduces privacy impact on model accuracy for underrepresented groups.
problem Privacy mechanisms disproportionately affect underrepresented groups in machine learning models.
method Proposes DPSGD-F, a modified DPSGD that adjusts group contributions based on clipping bias.
result DPSGD-F removes disparate impact of differential privacy on model accuracy for protected groups.