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Autori principali: Chen, Shuyi, Zhu, Shixiang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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Accesso online:https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17852
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author Chen, Shuyi
Zhu, Shixiang
author_facet Chen, Shuyi
Zhu, Shixiang
contents Machine learning models have shown exceptional prowess in solving complex issues across various domains. However, these models can sometimes exhibit biased decision-making, resulting in unequal treatment of different groups. Despite substantial research on counterfactual fairness, methods to reduce the impact of multivariate and continuous sensitive variables on decision-making outcomes are still underdeveloped. We propose a novel data pre-processing algorithm, Orthogonal to Bias (OB), which is designed to eliminate the influence of a group of continuous sensitive variables, thus promoting counterfactual fairness in machine learning applications. Our approach, based on the assumption of a jointly normal distribution within a structural causal model (SCM), demonstrates that counterfactual fairness can be achieved by ensuring the data is orthogonal to the observed sensitive variables. The OB algorithm is model-agnostic, making it applicable to a wide range of machine learning models and tasks. Additionally, it includes a sparse variant to improve numerical stability through regularization. Empirical evaluations on both simulated and real-world datasets, encompassing settings with both discrete and continuous sensitive variables, show that our methodology effectively promotes fairer outcomes without compromising accuracy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_17852
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Counterfactual Fairness through Transforming Data Orthogonal to Bias
Chen, Shuyi
Zhu, Shixiang
Machine Learning
Machine learning models have shown exceptional prowess in solving complex issues across various domains. However, these models can sometimes exhibit biased decision-making, resulting in unequal treatment of different groups. Despite substantial research on counterfactual fairness, methods to reduce the impact of multivariate and continuous sensitive variables on decision-making outcomes are still underdeveloped. We propose a novel data pre-processing algorithm, Orthogonal to Bias (OB), which is designed to eliminate the influence of a group of continuous sensitive variables, thus promoting counterfactual fairness in machine learning applications. Our approach, based on the assumption of a jointly normal distribution within a structural causal model (SCM), demonstrates that counterfactual fairness can be achieved by ensuring the data is orthogonal to the observed sensitive variables. The OB algorithm is model-agnostic, making it applicable to a wide range of machine learning models and tasks. Additionally, it includes a sparse variant to improve numerical stability through regularization. Empirical evaluations on both simulated and real-world datasets, encompassing settings with both discrete and continuous sensitive variables, show that our methodology effectively promotes fairer outcomes without compromising accuracy.
title Counterfactual Fairness through Transforming Data Orthogonal to Bias
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17852