Longitudinal Counterfactuals: Constraints and Opportunities

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Asemota, Alexander, Hooker, Giles
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Asemota, Alexander
Hooker, Giles
author_facet Asemota, Alexander
Hooker, Giles
contents Counterfactual explanations are a common approach to providing recourse to data subjects. However, current methodology can produce counterfactuals that cannot be achieved by the subject, making the use of counterfactuals for recourse difficult to justify in practice. Though there is agreement that plausibility is an important quality when using counterfactuals for algorithmic recourse, ground truth plausibility continues to be difficult to quantify. In this paper, we propose using longitudinal data to assess and improve plausibility in counterfactuals. In particular, we develop a metric that compares longitudinal differences to counterfactual differences, allowing us to evaluate how similar a counterfactual is to prior observed changes. Furthermore, we use this metric to generate plausible counterfactuals. Finally, we discuss some of the inherent difficulties of using counterfactuals for recourse.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_00105
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Longitudinal Counterfactuals: Constraints and Opportunities
Asemota, Alexander
Hooker, Giles
Machine Learning
Computers and Society
Counterfactual explanations are a common approach to providing recourse to data subjects. However, current methodology can produce counterfactuals that cannot be achieved by the subject, making the use of counterfactuals for recourse difficult to justify in practice. Though there is agreement that plausibility is an important quality when using counterfactuals for algorithmic recourse, ground truth plausibility continues to be difficult to quantify. In this paper, we propose using longitudinal data to assess and improve plausibility in counterfactuals. In particular, we develop a metric that compares longitudinal differences to counterfactual differences, allowing us to evaluate how similar a counterfactual is to prior observed changes. Furthermore, we use this metric to generate plausible counterfactuals. Finally, we discuss some of the inherent difficulties of using counterfactuals for recourse.
title Longitudinal Counterfactuals: Constraints and Opportunities
topic Machine Learning
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00105