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.
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.
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.
We mathematically compare four competing definitions of group-level nondiscrimination: demographic parity, equalized odds, predictive parity, and calibration. Using the theoretical framework of Friedler et al., we study the properties of each definition under various worldviews, which are assumptions about how, if at a…
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…
New causal analysis reconciles predictive and statistical fairness.
problem Mutual exclusivity of predictive and statistical fairness notions.
method Derive a new causal decomposition formula for fairness measures.
result Predictive and statistical fairness are complementary, not mutually exclusive.
Selective regression allows abstention to improve fairness criteria.
problem Selective regression can exacerbate disparities between subgroups.
method Proposes new fairness criteria and two approaches to mitigate performance disparity.
result Proposed fairness criteria ensures performance improvement for every subgroup with reduced coverage.
Deep chest X-ray classifiers show bias in predicting diagnoses.
problem Bias in deep learning classifiers predicting diagnoses from chest X-rays.
method Trained convolutional neural networks on multiple public datasets to predict 14 diagnostic labels.
result True positive rates vary significantly among different protected attributes, indicating bias.
New research shows machine-assisted decisions can still be unfair even when the algorithm is fair.
problem Ensuring fairness in decisions made with machine-assisted human input.
method Formal model and lab experiment to analyze how machine predictions affect human decisions.
result Excluding information about protected groups from machine predictions can increase disparities.
New methods detect unfairness in multiclass classifiers using DCP.
problem Detecting unfairness in multiclass classifiers.
method Generalizes DCP to multiclass, provides optimization methods.
result Detects classifiers treating a significant fraction of the population unfairly.
Study shows how algorithmic prediction affects US housing market, reducing racial wealth disparities.
problem Impact of algorithmic prediction on housing market and racial wealth disparities.
method Natural experiment using digitization of housing records to study entry, allocation, and prices.
result Digitization leads to increased sale prices for minority-owned homes, reducing racial wealth disparities.
Recidivism prediction instruments provide decision makers with an assessment of the likelihood that a criminal defendant will reoffend at a future point in time. While such instruments are gaining increasing popularity across the country, their use is attracting tremendous controversy. Much of the controversy concerns …
Recidivism prediction instruments (RPI's) provide decision makers with an assessment of the likelihood that a criminal defendant will reoffend at a future point in time. While such instruments are gaining increasing popularity across the country, their use is attracting tremendous controversy. Much of the controversy c…
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.
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.
EL framework certifies and flags bias in ML models without distributional assumptions.
problem Systematic performance disparities across sensitive subpopulations in ML models.
method Empirical likelihood-based approach for non-parametric fairness auditing.
result EL framework outperforms bootstrap methods in certification and subpopulation discovery.
Develops a new criterion for subgroup fairness in algorithmic decision support.
problem Identifying fair recommendations in algorithms despite group-level differences.
method IJDI criterion and IJDI-Scan approach to detect and mitigate disparities.
result Identifies significant disparities in recommendations across subpopulations.
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…
The increasing impact of algorithmic decisions on people's lives compels us to scrutinize their fairness and, in particular, the disparate impacts that ostensibly-color-blind algorithms can have on different groups. Examples include credit decisioning, hiring, advertising, criminal justice, personalized medicine, and t…
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.
The paper shows how demographic data can lead to biased predictions, proposing 'Affirmative Information' as a solution.
problem Bias in predictions due to demographic data.
method Characterization of error types and conditions leading to disparate impact.
result Demographic variables in data can lead to biased predictions, with higher average outcomes receiving higher false positive rates.
There is growing interest in applying machine learning methods to Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Across different institutions, however, EMR quality can vary widely. This work investigated the impact of this disparity on the performance of three advanced machine learning algorithms: logistic regression, multilayer p…
This paper tackles fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity, proving their limitations and proposing a new algorithm.
problem Ensuring fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity, especially when group performance levels vary widely.
method Proving the limitations of fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity and proposing a new adaptive thresholding algorithm, FairBayes-DPP.
result Fair Bayes-optimal classifiers under predictive parity may not hold if group performance levels vary widely, leading to within-group unfairness.
Kandinsky conformal prediction expands conditional coverage guarantees.
problem Disparities in coverage guarantees across different subpopulations.
method Flexible handling of overlapping and fractional group memberships.
result Minimax-optimal high-probability conditional coverage bound.
Develops causal framework for fair survival analysis in healthcare.
problem Fairness in survival analysis for high-stakes domains like healthcare.
method Causal framework using graphical models, conditional survival function, and Causal Reduction Theorem.
result Decomposes disparities in survival into direct, indirect, and spurious pathways.
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…
Study examines impact of fairness penalties on clinical risk prediction models.
problem Widespread health disparities in machine learning-guided clinical decision-making.
method Empirical study across multiple databases, outcomes, and sensitive attributes.
result Penalizing fairness violations nearly universally degrades model performance and fairness metrics.
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,…
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.
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.
New approach to fairness in machine learning models using conformal prediction.
problem Fairness in machine learning models' downstream decision-making.
method Theoretical derivation and empirical evaluation of label-clustered conformal prediction.
result Label-clustered conformal prediction often provides a favorable balance between utility and substantive fairness.
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.
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.
Proposes a method to learn fair predictors for multiple subgroups with limited data.
problem Fairness and accuracy issues in learning from multiple subgroups with limited data.
method Formulates a bilevel objective to learn subgroup-specific predictors and a fair predictor that is close to all of them.
result The method effectively controls group sufficiency and generalization error, improving fairness and accuracy.
A transfer learning method builds high-dimensional models using disparate datasets.
problem Building comprehensive prediction models with small sample sizes and limited features.
method Transfer learning approach using external data to build a reduced model and apply calibration equations.
result Proposes a penalized generalized method of moment framework for inference and one-step estimation.
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.
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…
This paper defines less discriminatory algorithms and explores their feasibility.
problem Creating algorithms that are less discriminatory while meeting business needs.
method Formal definition of less discriminatory algorithms, evaluation of feasibility, and search for alternatives.
result Formal definitions of less discriminatory algorithms face challenges due to lack of held-out data, necessitating a reliance on reasonableness standards.
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…
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.
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 …
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…
Predictive modeling is increasingly being employed to assist human decision-makers. One purported advantage of replacing human judgment with computer models in high stakes settings-- such as sentencing, hiring, policing, college admissions, and parole decisions-- is the perceived "neutrality" of computers. It is argued…
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.