Who's Gaming the System? A Causally-Motivated Approach for Detecting Strategic Adaptation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chang, Trenton, Warrenburg, Lindsay, Park, Sae-Hwan, Parikh, Ravi B., Makar, Maggie, Wiens, Jenna
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Chang, Trenton
Warrenburg, Lindsay
Park, Sae-Hwan
Parikh, Ravi B.
Makar, Maggie
Wiens, Jenna
author_facet Chang, Trenton
Warrenburg, Lindsay
Park, Sae-Hwan
Parikh, Ravi B.
Makar, Maggie
Wiens, Jenna
contents In many settings, machine learning models may be used to inform decisions that impact individuals or entities who interact with the model. Such entities, or agents, may game model decisions by manipulating their inputs to the model to obtain better outcomes and maximize some utility. We consider a multi-agent setting where the goal is to identify the "worst offenders:" agents that are gaming most aggressively. However, identifying such agents is difficult without knowledge of their utility function. Thus, we introduce a framework in which each agent's tendency to game is parameterized via a scalar. We show that this gaming parameter is only partially identifiable. By recasting the problem as a causal effect estimation problem where different agents represent different "treatments," we prove that a ranking of all agents by their gaming parameters is identifiable. We present empirical results in a synthetic data study validating the usage of causal effect estimation for gaming detection and show in a case study of diagnosis coding behavior in the U.S. that our approach highlights features associated with gaming.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_02000
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Who's Gaming the System? A Causally-Motivated Approach for Detecting Strategic Adaptation
Chang, Trenton
Warrenburg, Lindsay
Park, Sae-Hwan
Parikh, Ravi B.
Makar, Maggie
Wiens, Jenna
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
In many settings, machine learning models may be used to inform decisions that impact individuals or entities who interact with the model. Such entities, or agents, may game model decisions by manipulating their inputs to the model to obtain better outcomes and maximize some utility. We consider a multi-agent setting where the goal is to identify the "worst offenders:" agents that are gaming most aggressively. However, identifying such agents is difficult without knowledge of their utility function. Thus, we introduce a framework in which each agent's tendency to game is parameterized via a scalar. We show that this gaming parameter is only partially identifiable. By recasting the problem as a causal effect estimation problem where different agents represent different "treatments," we prove that a ranking of all agents by their gaming parameters is identifiable. We present empirical results in a synthetic data study validating the usage of causal effect estimation for gaming detection and show in a case study of diagnosis coding behavior in the U.S. that our approach highlights features associated with gaming.
title Who's Gaming the System? A Causally-Motivated Approach for Detecting Strategic Adaptation
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02000