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Main Authors: Zhu, Yuchang, Li, Jintang, Bian, Yatao, Zheng, Zibin, Chen, Liang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13544
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author Zhu, Yuchang
Li, Jintang
Bian, Yatao
Zheng, Zibin
Chen, Liang
author_facet Zhu, Yuchang
Li, Jintang
Bian, Yatao
Zheng, Zibin
Chen, Liang
contents Recent studies have highlighted fairness issues in Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), where they produce discriminatory predictions against specific protected groups categorized by sensitive attributes such as race and age. While various efforts to enhance GNN fairness have made significant progress, these approaches are often tailored to specific sensitive attributes. Consequently, they necessitate retraining the model from scratch to accommodate changes in the sensitive attribute requirement, resulting in high computational costs. To gain deeper insights into this issue, we approach the graph fairness problem from a causal modeling perspective, where we identify the confounding effect induced by the sensitive attribute as the underlying reason. Motivated by this observation, we formulate the fairness problem in graphs from an invariant learning perspective, which aims to learn invariant representations across environments. Accordingly, we propose a graph fairness framework based on invariant learning, namely FairINV, which enables the training of fair GNNs to accommodate various sensitive attributes within a single training session. Specifically, FairINV incorporates sensitive attribute partition and trains fair GNNs by eliminating spurious correlations between the label and various sensitive attributes. Experimental results on several real-world datasets demonstrate that FairINV significantly outperforms state-of-the-art fairness approaches, underscoring its effectiveness. Our code is available via: https://github.com/ZzoomD/FairINV/.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_13544
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle One Fits All: Learning Fair Graph Neural Networks for Various Sensitive Attributes
Zhu, Yuchang
Li, Jintang
Bian, Yatao
Zheng, Zibin
Chen, Liang
Machine Learning
Recent studies have highlighted fairness issues in Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), where they produce discriminatory predictions against specific protected groups categorized by sensitive attributes such as race and age. While various efforts to enhance GNN fairness have made significant progress, these approaches are often tailored to specific sensitive attributes. Consequently, they necessitate retraining the model from scratch to accommodate changes in the sensitive attribute requirement, resulting in high computational costs. To gain deeper insights into this issue, we approach the graph fairness problem from a causal modeling perspective, where we identify the confounding effect induced by the sensitive attribute as the underlying reason. Motivated by this observation, we formulate the fairness problem in graphs from an invariant learning perspective, which aims to learn invariant representations across environments. Accordingly, we propose a graph fairness framework based on invariant learning, namely FairINV, which enables the training of fair GNNs to accommodate various sensitive attributes within a single training session. Specifically, FairINV incorporates sensitive attribute partition and trains fair GNNs by eliminating spurious correlations between the label and various sensitive attributes. Experimental results on several real-world datasets demonstrate that FairINV significantly outperforms state-of-the-art fairness approaches, underscoring its effectiveness. Our code is available via: https://github.com/ZzoomD/FairINV/.
title One Fits All: Learning Fair Graph Neural Networks for Various Sensitive Attributes
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13544