The Disparate Benefits of Deep Ensembles

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Schweighofer, Kajetan, Arnaiz-Rodriguez, Adrian, Hochreiter, Sepp, Oliver, Nuria
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Schweighofer, Kajetan
Arnaiz-Rodriguez, Adrian
Hochreiter, Sepp
Oliver, Nuria
author_facet Schweighofer, Kajetan
Arnaiz-Rodriguez, Adrian
Hochreiter, Sepp
Oliver, Nuria
contents Ensembles of Deep Neural Networks, Deep Ensembles, are widely used as a simple way to boost predictive performance. However, their impact on algorithmic fairness is not well understood yet. Algorithmic fairness examines how a model's performance varies across socially relevant groups defined by protected attributes such as age, gender, or race. In this work, we explore the interplay between the performance gains from Deep Ensembles and fairness. Our analysis reveals that they unevenly favor different groups, a phenomenon that we term the disparate benefits effect. We empirically investigate this effect using popular facial analysis and medical imaging datasets with protected group attributes and find that it affects multiple established group fairness metrics, including statistical parity and equal opportunity. Furthermore, we identify that the per-group differences in predictive diversity of ensemble members can explain this effect. Finally, we demonstrate that the classical Hardt post-processing method is particularly effective at mitigating the disparate benefits effect of Deep Ensembles by leveraging their better-calibrated predictive distributions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_13831
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Disparate Benefits of Deep Ensembles
Schweighofer, Kajetan
Arnaiz-Rodriguez, Adrian
Hochreiter, Sepp
Oliver, Nuria
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Ensembles of Deep Neural Networks, Deep Ensembles, are widely used as a simple way to boost predictive performance. However, their impact on algorithmic fairness is not well understood yet. Algorithmic fairness examines how a model's performance varies across socially relevant groups defined by protected attributes such as age, gender, or race. In this work, we explore the interplay between the performance gains from Deep Ensembles and fairness. Our analysis reveals that they unevenly favor different groups, a phenomenon that we term the disparate benefits effect. We empirically investigate this effect using popular facial analysis and medical imaging datasets with protected group attributes and find that it affects multiple established group fairness metrics, including statistical parity and equal opportunity. Furthermore, we identify that the per-group differences in predictive diversity of ensemble members can explain this effect. Finally, we demonstrate that the classical Hardt post-processing method is particularly effective at mitigating the disparate benefits effect of Deep Ensembles by leveraging their better-calibrated predictive distributions.
title The Disparate Benefits of Deep Ensembles
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.13831