FairTargetSim: An Interactive Simulator for Understanding and Explaining the Fairness Effects of Target Variable Definition

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gala, Dalia, Phillips-Brown, Milo, Goel, Naman, Prunkl, Carinal, Jubete, Laura Alvarez, corcoran, medb, Eitel-Porter, Ray
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Gala, Dalia
Phillips-Brown, Milo
Goel, Naman
Prunkl, Carinal
Jubete, Laura Alvarez
corcoran, medb
Eitel-Porter, Ray
author_facet Gala, Dalia
Phillips-Brown, Milo
Goel, Naman
Prunkl, Carinal
Jubete, Laura Alvarez
corcoran, medb
Eitel-Porter, Ray
contents Machine learning requires defining one's target variable for predictions or decisions, a process that can have profound implications for fairness, since biases are often encoded in target variable definition itself, before any data collection or training. The downstream impacts of target variable definition must be taken into account in order to responsibly develop, deploy, and use the algorithmic systems. We propose FairTargetSim (FTS), an interactive and simulation-based approach for this. We demonstrate FTS using the example of algorithmic hiring, grounded in real-world data and user-defined target variables. FTS is open-source; it can be used by algorithm developers, non-technical stakeholders, researchers, and educators in a number of ways. FTS is available at: http://tinyurl.com/ftsinterface. The video accompanying this paper is here: http://tinyurl.com/ijcaifts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_06031
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FairTargetSim: An Interactive Simulator for Understanding and Explaining the Fairness Effects of Target Variable Definition
Gala, Dalia
Phillips-Brown, Milo
Goel, Naman
Prunkl, Carinal
Jubete, Laura Alvarez
corcoran, medb
Eitel-Porter, Ray
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
Machine learning requires defining one's target variable for predictions or decisions, a process that can have profound implications for fairness, since biases are often encoded in target variable definition itself, before any data collection or training. The downstream impacts of target variable definition must be taken into account in order to responsibly develop, deploy, and use the algorithmic systems. We propose FairTargetSim (FTS), an interactive and simulation-based approach for this. We demonstrate FTS using the example of algorithmic hiring, grounded in real-world data and user-defined target variables. FTS is open-source; it can be used by algorithm developers, non-technical stakeholders, researchers, and educators in a number of ways. FTS is available at: http://tinyurl.com/ftsinterface. The video accompanying this paper is here: http://tinyurl.com/ijcaifts.
title FairTargetSim: An Interactive Simulator for Understanding and Explaining the Fairness Effects of Target Variable Definition
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.06031