Fair Model-based Clustering

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Park, Jinwon, Kim, Kunwoong, Lee, Jihu, Kim, Yongdai
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Park, Jinwon
Kim, Kunwoong
Lee, Jihu
Kim, Yongdai
author_facet Park, Jinwon
Kim, Kunwoong
Lee, Jihu
Kim, Yongdai
contents The goal of fair clustering is to find clusters such that the proportion of sensitive attributes (e.g., gender, race, etc.) in each cluster is similar to that of the entire dataset. Various fair clustering algorithms have been proposed that modify standard K-means clustering to satisfy a given fairness constraint. A critical limitation of several existing fair clustering algorithms is that the number of parameters to be learned is proportional to the sample size because the cluster assignment of each datum should be optimized simultaneously with the cluster center, and thus scaling up the algorithms is difficult. In this paper, we propose a new fair clustering algorithm based on a finite mixture model, called Fair Model-based Clustering (FMC). A main advantage of FMC is that the number of learnable parameters is independent of the sample size and thus can be scaled up easily. In particular, mini-batch learning is possible to obtain clusters that are approximately fair. Moreover, FMC can be applied to non-metric data (e.g., categorical data) as long as the likelihood is well-defined. Theoretical and empirical justifications for the superiority of the proposed algorithm are provided.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_21509
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fair Model-based Clustering
Park, Jinwon
Kim, Kunwoong
Lee, Jihu
Kim, Yongdai
Machine Learning
Applications
The goal of fair clustering is to find clusters such that the proportion of sensitive attributes (e.g., gender, race, etc.) in each cluster is similar to that of the entire dataset. Various fair clustering algorithms have been proposed that modify standard K-means clustering to satisfy a given fairness constraint. A critical limitation of several existing fair clustering algorithms is that the number of parameters to be learned is proportional to the sample size because the cluster assignment of each datum should be optimized simultaneously with the cluster center, and thus scaling up the algorithms is difficult. In this paper, we propose a new fair clustering algorithm based on a finite mixture model, called Fair Model-based Clustering (FMC). A main advantage of FMC is that the number of learnable parameters is independent of the sample size and thus can be scaled up easily. In particular, mini-batch learning is possible to obtain clusters that are approximately fair. Moreover, FMC can be applied to non-metric data (e.g., categorical data) as long as the likelihood is well-defined. Theoretical and empirical justifications for the superiority of the proposed algorithm are provided.
title Fair Model-based Clustering
topic Machine Learning
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21509