The effectiveness of machine learning algorithms depends on the quality and amount of data and the operationalization and interpretation by the human analyst. In humanitarian response, data is often lacking or overburdening, thus ambiguous, and the time-scarce, volatile, insecure environments of humanitarian activities…
Machine learning algorithms are now frequently used in sensitive contexts that substantially affect the course of human lives, such as credit lending or criminal justice. This is driven by the idea that `objective' machines base their decisions solely on facts and remain unaffected by human cognitive biases, discrimina…
Paper proposes using unlabeled data for fair decision-making.
problem Bias in decision-making algorithms due to biased labels and selective labeling.
method Variational autoencoder for learning unbiased data representations from both labeled and unlabeled data.
result Method learns fair and stable decision policies with high utility.
The paper tackles fair sequential decision making with biased linear bandit feedback.
problem Fair sequential decision making with biased linear bandit feedback.
method Phased elimination algorithm to correct unfair evaluations, establishing upper bounds on regret.
result The worst-case regret is smaller than O(κ∗1/3log(T)1/3T2/3). Machine learning (ML) is increasingly deployed in real world contexts, supplying actionable insights and forming the basis of automated decision-making systems. While issues resulting from biases pre-existing in training data have been at the center of the fairness debate, these systems are also affected by technical a…
In recent years, machine learning techniques have been increasingly applied in sensitive decision making processes, raising fairness concerns. Past research has shown that machine learning may reproduce and even exacerbate human bias due to biased training data or flawed model assumptions, and thus may lead to discrimi…
New online method for statistical inference with matrix context in decision-making.
problem Statistical inference in decision-making with matrix context.
method Proposes a fully online procedure to conduct statistical inference with adaptive data collection, handling low-rank structure.
result Establishes asymptotic normality of debiased estimators and proves validity of confidence intervals.
Time series data that are not measured at regular intervals are commonly discretized as a preprocessing step. For example, data about customer arrival times might be simplified by summing the number of arrivals within hourly intervals, which produces a discrete-time time series that is easier to model. In this abstract…
The paper tackles individualized decision-making under unmeasured confounding, providing a novel minimax solution and a paradox.
problem Unmeasured confounding in causal inference leads to biased estimates and affects individualized decision-making.
method The authors establish a formal link between individualized decision-making under partial identification and classical decision theory, providing a minimax solution and a paradox.
result A novel minimax solution for individualized decision-making/policy assignment is provided, and an interesting paradox is drawn.
Interpole learns transparent decision-making policies from data.
problem Understanding human decision-making in opaque environments.
method Interpole combines belief-update and belief-action mapping estimation.
result Interpole provides interpretable models of decision-making behavior.
Societies often rely on human experts to take a wide variety of decisions affecting their members, from jail-or-release decisions taken by judges and stop-and-frisk decisions taken by police officers to accept-or-reject decisions taken by academics. In this context, each decision is taken by an expert who is typically …
The Availability bias, manifested in the over-representation of extreme eventualities in decision-making, is a well-known cognitive bias, and is generally taken as evidence of human irrationality. In this work, we present the first rational, metacognitive account of the Availability bias, formally articulated at Marr's…
Paper proposes synthetic data generator to study and mitigate bias in machine learning.
problem Bias in machine learning data can lead to unfair outcomes.
method Developed a synthetic data generator to introduce and analyze various types of bias.
result Demonstrated how synthetic data can be used to study and mitigate bias in machine learning models.
This paper identifies and analyzes biases in risk-adjusted index weighting methods, affecting social welfare and market fairness.
problem Biases in risk-adjusted index weighting methods lead to tracking errors and fraud in indices and ETFs.
method Characterizes and analyzes the biases and adverse effects of risk-adjusted index weighting methods.
result These biases reduce social welfare and can enable harmful arbitrage activities.
What would you do if you were invited to play a game where you were given \$25 and allowed to place bets for 30 minutes on a coin that you were told was biased to come up heads 60% of the time? This is exactly what we did, gathering 61 young, quantitatively trained men and women to play this game. The results, in a nut…
Accurately predicting the outcome of sporting events has been a goal for many groups who seek to maximize profit. What makes this challenging is that the outcome of an event can be influenced by many factors that dynamically change across time. Oddsmakers attempt to estimate these factors by using both algorithmic and …
New clustering method considers causal fairness to avoid bias.
problem Clustering algorithms can unintentionally propagate unfair disparities.
method Integrates causal fairness metrics into clustering algorithms.
result Demonstrates efficacy on datasets with known unfair biases.
In many machine learning applications, there are multiple decision-makers involved, both automated and human. The interaction between these agents often goes unaddressed in algorithmic development. In this work, we explore a simple version of this interaction with a two-stage framework containing an automated model and…
Fairness in algorithmic decision-making processes is attracting increasing concern. When an algorithm is applied to human-related decision-making an estimator solely optimizing its predictive power can learn biases on the existing data, which motivates us the notion of fairness in machine learning. while several differ…
Human irrationality can improve AI design, study shows.
problem Improving AI by learning from human decision-making biases.
method Developed a novel POMDP model to simulate human decision-making in contextual choice tasks.
result Reinforcement learners can exploit human irrationalities to make better decisions.
Drawing an inspiration from behavioral studies of human decision making, we propose here a more general and flexible parametric framework for reinforcement learning that extends standard Q-learning to a two-stream model for processing positive and negative rewards, and allows to incorporate a wide range of reward-proce…
New method minimizes decision errors in large treatment spaces.
problem Improving decision-making in large treatment spaces with biased observational data.
method Loss minimizes classification error of actions in large action space.
result Proves improved decision-making performance in large combinatorial action spaces.
The paper examines A/B tests in recommendation systems to detect biased algorithm comparisons due to shared data.
problem Bias in comparing recommendation algorithms due to shared data.
method Formalized as a multi-armed bandit problem, analyzed the sign of difference-in-means estimator vs true GTE.
result Data sharing can lead to biased comparisons of recommendation algorithms, and a detection procedure is proposed.
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.
The paper proposes a fair reinforcement learning framework to prevent healthcare disparities.
problem Unfair reinforcement learning policies in healthcare can lead to socioeconomically-disadvantaged subgroups being underprivileged.
method The paper introduces a counterfactual fairness framework and a sequential data preprocessing algorithm to achieve fair sequential decision making.
result The proposed approach greatly enhances fair access to counseling in a digital health dataset designed to reduce opioid misuse.
Study shows how online personalization can lead to unfair models due to biased user responses.
problem Fairness issues in online personalization systems due to biased user responses.
method Formulated a regularization-based approach to mitigate biases in machine learning models.
result Demonstrated that online personalization can cause models to learn unfair behavior from biased user responses.
Machine Learning (ML) is increasingly applied in real-life scenarios, raising concerns about bias in automatic decision making. We focus on bias as a notion of opinion exclusion, that stems from the direct application of traditional ML pipelines to infer subjective properties. We argue that such ML systems should be ev…
AI-Interpret transforms opaque policies into simple, interpretable decision rules.
problem Designing effective decision aids for professionals to mitigate decision-making biases.
method Combining imitation learning, program induction, and clustering to transform learned policies into interpretable descriptions.
result Providing interpretable decision rules as flowcharts significantly improves people's planning strategies and decisions.
Decision making based on behavioral and neural observations of living systems has been extensively studied in brain science, psychology, and other disciplines. Decision-making mechanisms have also been experimentally implemented in physical processes, such as single photons and chaotic lasers. The findings of these exp…
Neural network approximates Bayesian decision-making parameters.
problem Analytical intractability of Bayesian decision-making in naturalistic tasks.
method Neural amortization of Bayesian actor model.
result Efficient gradient-based inference of Bayesian actor model parameters.
Causal ML predicts treatment outcomes, aiding personalized medicine.
problem Predicting individualized treatment effects for personalized medicine.
method Flexible, data-driven methods using causal inference with clinical trial and real-world data.
result Causal ML allows for estimating individualized treatment effects.
Active inference enhances RL by balancing exploration and exploitation.
problem Traditional RL's balance between exploration and exploitation is often suboptimal.
method Developed a new decision-making objective based on active inference.
result The new algorithm successfully balances exploration and exploitation on various RL benchmarks.
New approaches improve uncertainty quantification in autoregressive models for sequence data.
problem Uncertainty quantification in autoregressive models for exchangeable sequences.
method Study of inferential and architectural biases for autoregressive models, focusing on multi-step inference.
result Custom architectures are necessary for multi-step inference to ensure exchangeability.
This thesis tackles bias in AI decision-making in banking.
problem Bias in AI-driven banking decisions.
method Understanding, mitigating, and accounting for bias in AI systems.
result Establishment of Responsible AI practices for fair decision-making.
Study detects and explains positional bias in financial LLMs.
problem Positional bias in financial decision-making using LLMs.
method Unified framework and benchmark for detecting and quantifying bias in Qwen2.5 models.
result Positional bias is pervasive, scale-sensitive, and resurfaces under nuanced prompt designs.
Proposes methods to learn from biased samples, ensuring robust decision rules.
problem Learning from biased samples can lead to poor performance in real-world applications.
method Modeling sampling bias, using distributionally robust optimization and deep learning.
result Proposes a method to minimize worst-case risk under various test distributions.
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…
Develops algorithm to make fair decisions from biased data.
problem Ethical concerns in machine learning fairness.
method Fair Learning through Data Preprocessing (FLAP) algorithm.
result Counterfactual fairness equivalent to conditional independence.
FairVIC improves fairness in neural networks without sacrificing accuracy.
problem Mitigating bias in automated decision-making systems, particularly in deep learning models.
method Integrates variance, invariance, and covariance terms into the loss function during training to abstract fairness concepts.
result Significant improvements in fairness across all tested metrics without compromising accuracy.
Data-driven algorithms play a large role in decision making across a variety of industries. Increasingly, these algorithms are being used to make decisions that have significant ramifications for people's social and economic well-being, e.g. in sentencing, loan approval, and policing. Amid the proliferation of such sys…
Improves decision-making in models fit with AEVB by using distinct approximate posteriors.
problem Bias in expected risk estimates due to variational distribution use.
method Use multiple approximate posteriors, including those distinct from variational, for decision-making.
result Proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods in single-cell RNA sequencing.
This work uncovers how model and data biases interact to cause unfairness in fraud detection.
problem Unfairness in fraud detection algorithms due to model and data biases.
method Taxonomy of data bias, hypotheses on fairness-accuracy trade-offs, real-world fraud use case study.
result Data bias affects fairness in expected value and variance, and simple pre-processing can balance group-wise error rates.
ChatGPT improves financial reasoning, overcoming biases in gold investment.
problem Improving financial reasoning and overcoming biases in investment decisions.
method Applied advanced prompt engineering and semantic news information to enhance LLMs' performance.
result ChatGPT with CoT prompt provides more explainable predictions and higher investment returns.
Study models human investors' sub-rational behavior in financial markets.
problem Lack of a comprehensive model for human sub-rationality in financial markets.
method Flexible reinforcement learning model incorporating five human sub-rational aspects.
result Model accurately reproduces human behavior and reveals insights into market dynamics.
Develops a method for fairness in multi-task learning using Wasserstein barycenters.
problem Extending fairness to multi-task learning with shared representations.
method Definition of Strong Demographic Parity extended to multi-task learning using multi-marginal Wasserstein barycenters. Closed form solution for optimal fair predictor.
result Empirical results show practical value of post-processing methodology in promoting fair decision-making.
Decision making is a process that is extremely prone to different biases. In this paper we consider learning fair representations that aim at removing nuisance (sensitive) information from the decision process. For this purpose, we propose to use deep generative modeling and adapt a hierarchical Variational Auto-Encode…
New algorithms handle missing outcomes in MAB, reducing regret.
problem Missing outcomes in real-world MAB scenarios lead to biased estimates and linear regret.
method Introduced algorithms for MAR and MNAR missingness mechanisms in MAB.
result Significant improvements in decision-making by accounting for missingness.
Experiment shows cognitive biases impact human-AI collaboration, highlighting the need for diverse evaluator samples.
problem Cognitive biases affect human-AI collaboration, leading to suboptimal outcomes.
method Randomized experiment with 2,784 participants, manipulating AI suggestion quality, task burden, and financial incentives.
result Individual attitudes toward AI are the strongest predictor of performance, influencing accuracy and overcorrection.