On the Vulnerability of Fairness Constrained Learning to Malicious Noise

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Blum, Avrim, Okoroafor, Princewill, Saha, Aadirupa, Stangl, Kevin
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Blum, Avrim
Okoroafor, Princewill
Saha, Aadirupa
Stangl, Kevin
author_facet Blum, Avrim
Okoroafor, Princewill
Saha, Aadirupa
Stangl, Kevin
contents We consider the vulnerability of fairness-constrained learning to small amounts of malicious noise in the training data. Konstantinov and Lampert (2021) initiated the study of this question and presented negative results showing there exist data distributions where for several fairness constraints, any proper learner will exhibit high vulnerability when group sizes are imbalanced. Here, we present a more optimistic view, showing that if we allow randomized classifiers, then the landscape is much more nuanced. For example, for Demographic Parity we show we can incur only a $Θ(α)$ loss in accuracy, where $α$ is the malicious noise rate, matching the best possible even without fairness constraints. For Equal Opportunity, we show we can incur an $O(\sqrtα)$ loss, and give a matching $Ω(\sqrtα)$lower bound. In contrast, Konstantinov and Lampert (2021) showed for proper learners the loss in accuracy for both notions is $Ω(1)$. The key technical novelty of our work is how randomization can bypass simple "tricks" an adversary can use to amplify his power. We also consider additional fairness notions including Equalized Odds and Calibration. For these fairness notions, the excess accuracy clusters into three natural regimes $O(α)$,$O(\sqrtα)$ and $O(1)$. These results provide a more fine-grained view of the sensitivity of fairness-constrained learning to adversarial noise in training data.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_11892
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Vulnerability of Fairness Constrained Learning to Malicious Noise
Blum, Avrim
Okoroafor, Princewill
Saha, Aadirupa
Stangl, Kevin
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Cryptography and Security
Computers and Society
I.2
We consider the vulnerability of fairness-constrained learning to small amounts of malicious noise in the training data. Konstantinov and Lampert (2021) initiated the study of this question and presented negative results showing there exist data distributions where for several fairness constraints, any proper learner will exhibit high vulnerability when group sizes are imbalanced. Here, we present a more optimistic view, showing that if we allow randomized classifiers, then the landscape is much more nuanced. For example, for Demographic Parity we show we can incur only a $Θ(α)$ loss in accuracy, where $α$ is the malicious noise rate, matching the best possible even without fairness constraints. For Equal Opportunity, we show we can incur an $O(\sqrtα)$ loss, and give a matching $Ω(\sqrtα)$lower bound. In contrast, Konstantinov and Lampert (2021) showed for proper learners the loss in accuracy for both notions is $Ω(1)$. The key technical novelty of our work is how randomization can bypass simple "tricks" an adversary can use to amplify his power. We also consider additional fairness notions including Equalized Odds and Calibration. For these fairness notions, the excess accuracy clusters into three natural regimes $O(α)$,$O(\sqrtα)$ and $O(1)$. These results provide a more fine-grained view of the sensitivity of fairness-constrained learning to adversarial noise in training data.
title On the Vulnerability of Fairness Constrained Learning to Malicious Noise
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Cryptography and Security
Computers and Society
I.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.11892