Develops methods to measure and reduce fairness in datasets with limited protected attribute labels.
problem Measuring and reducing fairness in datasets with limited protected attribute labels.
method Proposes methods to estimate fairness metrics and train models to limit fairness violations using probabilistic protected attribute labels.
result Our methods provide tighter bounds on true disparity and effectively reduce fairness violations with lesser fairness-accuracy trade-offs.
Proposes a new method for fairness in machine learning with multiple protected attributes.
problem Ensuring fairness in machine learning models with continuous and multiple protected attributes.
method Distance covariance regularisation framework to mitigate association between model predictions and protected attributes.
result Demonstrates effectiveness in mitigating fairness gerrymandering in regression tasks.
Framework for fair classification with noisy protected attributes and provable guarantees.
problem Fair classification with noisy protected attributes.
method Optimization framework for linear and linear-fractional fairness constraints, handling multiple non-binary attributes.
result Provably fair classifier with minimal accuracy loss, even with large noise.
New algorithm mitigates bias in subset selection with noisy protected attributes.
problem Mitigating bias in subset selection when protected attributes are noisy.
method Formulated a denoised selection problem and developed a linear-programming based approximation algorithm.
result The approach can produce fairer subsets despite noisy protected attributes.
New method learns fair representations by separating out protected attributes.
problem Learning fair representations invariant to protected attributes.
method FD-VAE: disentangles latent space into target, protected, and mutual attributes.
result FD-VAE outperforms previous methods in fairness metrics.
PASS protects private attributes by stochastically substituting data.
problem Protecting private attributes in ML services while maintaining data utility.
method PASS uses stochastic data substitution with a novel loss function derived from information theory.
result PASS effectively protects private attributes across various datasets.
Quantile regression is a tool for learning conditional distributions. In this paper we study quantile regression in the setting where a protected attribute is unavailable when fitting the model. This can lead to "unfair'' quantile estimators for which the effective quantiles are very different for the subpopulations de…
There is a growing body of work that proposes methods for mitigating bias in machine learning systems. These methods typically rely on access to protected attributes such as race, gender, or age. However, this raises two significant challenges: (1) protected attributes may not be available or it may not be legal to use…
Private release of sensitive data enables fair learning.
problem Learning fair predictors with restricted sensitive data.
method Private release of sensitive demographic data, adapting non-discriminatory learners.
result The approach provides theoretical guarantees on performance for fair predictors.
Most approaches aiming to ensure a model's fairness with respect to a protected attribute (such as gender or race) assume to know the true value of the attribute for every data point. In this paper, we ask to what extent fairness interventions can be effective even when only imperfect information about the protected at…
New framework for fair classification in adversarial settings with provable guarantees.
problem Fairness in classification with adversarial perturbations of protected attributes.
method Optimization framework for learning fair classifiers with provable guarantees.
result Near-tightness of accuracy and fairness guarantees for multiple protected attributes and various hypothesis classes.
New fairness criterion for risk-sensitive decisions in regulated industries.
problem Ensuring equitable outcomes in risk-sensitive decision-making.
method Marginal fairness for generalized distortion risk measures, two-step decision-making process.
result Ensures fairness in decision-making under risk measures, regardless of protected attributes.
This research compares two encoding methods for categorical attributes in machine learning, affecting model fairness.
problem The impact of encoding protected categorical attributes on fairness in machine learning models.
method Comparison of one-hot encoding and target encoding methods.
result Target encoding can lead to more unfair models compared to one-hot encoding due to induced bias.
New framework for fairness in continuous protected attributes.
problem Inherited biases in AI predictions with continuous protected attributes.
method Formalizes SP and PP through path-specific partial derivatives, introduces a fair tuning algorithm.
result Existence and construction of fair predictors that satisfy SP along not-allowed paths and PP along allowed paths.
The paper tackles fairness in estimating graphical models, especially for protected attributes.
problem Fairness issues in estimating graphical models, particularly for sensitive characteristics.
method Integrates pairwise graph disparity error and a tailored loss function into a multi-objective optimization problem.
result Successfully mitigates bias in graphical model estimation without compromising model performance.
MASC balances dataset representation using affinity clustering and distribution discrepancies.
problem Representation bias in datasets due to group imbalance.
method MASC uses affinity clustering and pairwise distribution discrepancies to balance non-protected and protected groups.
result MASC effectively debiases target datasets, comparable to existing methods.
New framework for fair ranking with noisy protected attributes.
problem Errors in socially-salient attributes undermine fairness guarantees.
method Modeling perturbations in protected attributes and incorporating probabilistic information.
result Framework provides provable guarantees on fairness and utility.
Study on protecting sensitive properties of datasets during analysis.
problem Ensuring privacy of sensitive properties in datasets.
method Proposes definitions and mechanisms for attribute privacy using the Pufferfish framework.
result Developed efficient and inefficient mechanisms for attribute privacy.
New model for fair clustering ensures balanced representation of protected attributes.
problem Ensuring fair representation in clustering for protected attributes.
method Model-based formulation of fair clustering, balancing protected attributes across clusters.
result Demonstrates improved fairness in clustering through a new model.
Fairness has become a central issue for our research community as classification algorithms are adopted in societally critical domains such as recidivism prediction and loan approval. In this work, we consider the potential bias based on protected attributes (e.g., race and gender), and tackle this problem by learning …
Introduces privilege scores to measure and interpret protected attribute-related privilege in machine learning models.
problem Lack of explicit formulation of non-neutrality in fairness-aware machine learning methods.
method Privilege scores (PS) and privilege score contributions (PSCs) to measure and interpret protected attribute-related privilege.
result Demonstrates the broad applicability of PS and PSCs in gender and racial privilege in mortgage and college admissions applications.
We consider the problem of diversity enhancing clustering, i.e, developing clustering methods which produce clusters that favour diversity with respect to a set of protected attributes such as race, sex, age, etc. In the context of fair clustering, diversity plays a major role when fairness is understood as demographic…
TaCo prevents non-linear classifiers from detecting sensitive attributes.
problem Ensuring fairness in NLP models by preventing sensitive attribute detection.
method Targeted Concept Erasure (TaCo) removes sensitive information from final latent representations, even against non-linear classifiers.
result TaCo outperforms state-of-the-art methods in reducing sensitive attribute prediction accuracy while preserving overall task performance.
Paper protects privacy and fairness in deep learning models.
problem Ensuring fairness in deep learning models while protecting sensitive data.
method Uses differential privacy and Lagrangian duality to design fair predictors.
result Demonstrates improved model performance on prediction tasks.
As AI systems develop in complexity it is becoming increasingly hard to ensure non-discrimination on the basis of protected attributes such as gender, age, and race. Many recent methods have been developed for dealing with this issue as long as the protected attribute is explicitly available for the algorithm. We addre…
Interpretability and fairness are critical in computer vision and machine learning applications, in particular when dealing with human outcomes, e.g. inviting or not inviting for a job interview based on application materials that may include photographs. One promising direction to achieve fairness is by learning data …
Introduces FairCOCCO for fair learning with multitype, multivariate sensitive attributes.
problem Fairness in machine learning with multiple, complex sensitive attributes.
method FairCOCCO measure based on cross-covariance operators, incorporating a regularisation term.
result Consistent improvements in balancing fairness and predictive power on real-world datasets.
The study tests and optimizes fairness in credit scoring models.
problem Discrimination in credit scoring models based on protected attributes.
method Formal testing and variable identification to optimize fairness and performance.
result Guidance on monitoring and improving algorithmic fairness in credit scoring.
Intersectionality is a framework that analyzes how interlocking systems of power and oppression affect individuals along overlapping dimensions including race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and disability. Intersectionality theory therefore implies it is important that fairness in artificial intelligence systems b…
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.
Fair clustering under the disparate impact doctrine requires that population of each protected group should be approximately equal in every cluster. Previous work investigated a difficult-to-scale pre-processing step for k-center and k-median style algorithms for the special case of this problem when the number of …
The paper explores the tradeoff between fairness and accuracy in regression models.
problem Characterizing the tradeoff between fairness and accuracy in regression models.
method Provided a lower bound on the error of any fair regressor and extended the result to joint error using Wasserstein distance.
result Lower bounds on the error of fair regressors and their connection to Wasserstein distance.
The paper explores intersectional fairness in machine learning, proving bounds on it.
problem Intersectional fairness in machine learning, especially when multiple protected attributes are involved.
method Statistical analysis and bounds on intersectional fairness, leveraging marginal fairness.
result Theoretical bounds on intersectional fairness can be computed from marginal fairness and other statistical quantities.
CST detects discrimination by comparing protected and non-protected individuals with a counterfactual.
problem Detecting discrimination in classifiers using legal fairness conditions.
method Operationalizes fairness given the difference using counterfactual reasoning.
result CST uncovers more discrimination cases than traditional situation testing.
Users in various web and mobile applications are vulnerable to attribute inference attacks, in which an attacker leverages a machine learning classifier to infer a target user's private attributes (e.g., location, sexual orientation, political view) from its public data (e.g., rating scores, page likes). Existing defen…
We present pairwise fairness metrics for ranking models and regression models that form analogues of statistical fairness notions such as equal opportunity, equal accuracy, and statistical parity. Our pairwise formulation supports both discrete protected groups, and continuous protected attributes. We show that the res…
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.
In this paper, we study the prediction of a real-valued target, such as a risk score or recidivism rate, while guaranteeing a quantitative notion of fairness with respect to a protected attribute such as gender or race. We call this class of problems \emph{fair regression}. We propose general schemes for fair regressio…
Study removes bias from chest X-ray embeddings using orthogonalization.
problem Reduces bias in chest X-ray embeddings due to protected features.
method Orthogonalization technique to remove protected feature effects.
result Orthogonalization removes bias and makes predictions of protected attributes infeasible.
Optimal pre-processing reduces disparate impact by minimizing total variation distance.
problem Achieving fairness in data outputs based on protected attributes.
method Using pre-processing to enforce fairness, minimizing total variation distance between pre-processed and original data distributions.
result The problem of fairness can be formulated as a linear program, efficiently solvable.
The paper introduces a new algorithm for fair decision-making in outcome control tasks.
problem Fair and equitable automated decision-making in outcome control tasks.
method Causal analysis and optimization to ensure fairness in decision-making.
result Developed an algorithm for maximizing Y while ensuring causal fairness. The widespread use of ML-based decision making in domains with high societal impact such as recidivism, job hiring and loan credit has raised a lot of concerns regarding potential discrimination. In particular, in certain cases it has been observed that ML algorithms can provide different decisions based on sensitive a…
Recent work on fairness in machine learning has focused on various statistical discrimination criteria and how they trade off. Most of these criteria are observational: They depend only on the joint distribution of predictor, protected attribute, features, and outcome. While convenient to work with, observational crite…
New methods ensure fair rankings in web-scale recommender systems.
problem Ensuring fairness in recommender systems, especially in web-scale applications.
method Scalable methods for achieving fairness in rankings, addressing position bias.
result Our methods effectively achieve fairness in various recommender systems.
Personalized models using group attributes reduce performance, study finds.
problem Reducing performance of models using group attributes like race or gender.
method Formal conditions and collective preference guarantees to ensure fair use.
result Models personalized with group attributes reduce performance at a group level.
Motivated by settings in which predictive models may be required to be non-discriminatory with respect to certain attributes (such as race), but even collecting the sensitive attribute may be forbidden or restricted, we initiate the study of fair learning under the constraint of differential privacy. We design two lear…
RENNs protect input privacy by rotating d-ary features.
problem Protecting input privacy from intermediate-layer features.
method Rotation-equivariant neural networks using d-ary vectors/tensors.
result RENNs effectively hide input information without degrading output accuracy.
A new method assesses algorithmic fairness using game theory.
problem Evaluating algorithmic fairness without proprietary data.
method Cohort Shapley value, a game-theoretic approach.
result Identifies individual impact of protected attributes.