Lecture 6 Flashcards
Fairness
Fairness: Theory of Fairness & Operational Fairness
What is the difference between equality and equity ?
Equality is about equal treatment:
* Fairness of Treatment
* Individual Fairness
* Equal Opportunities
Equity is about equitable treatment:
* Fairness of Outcomes
* Group Fairness
* Creation of Opportunities
Fairness (in DA/ML): Legal perspective
What can discrimination be due to?
Discrimination can be due to
– Individual practices
– Institutional practices
– structural practices
How does discrimination change between dominant and minority groups ?
– Dominant: Individuals or groups who have power in society
– Minority: groups that lack power often historically (should be protected)
What is the theory of justice ?
The theory of justice exists through 3 aspects:
* Procedural Justice
* Retributive and Restorative Justice
* Distributive Justice
What is procedural justice ?
Type of justice concerned with fairness in designing and implementing processes
e.g., delegating power through fair elections …
What are Retributive and Restorative Justice ?
Retributive and Restorative Justice are retroactive approaches that define the response to past injustice or wrongdoing
What is distributive justice ?
Distributive Justice is concerned with the fair distribution of resources material (e.g., resources, loans, salaries, housing), services (e.g., healthcare, entertainment, education), or opportunities (e.g., jobs, political participation) and the distribution of burdens (e.g., barriers, duties, taxes, sanctions, and punishments etc
What does the resourcist approach of John Rawls say ?
- All people should have equal and equitable levels of resources.
- Attempts to mitigate inequalities should maximise the benefits of the least advantaged.
It can be reached through several approaches: - Egalitarianism: All groups and individuals are treated equally or equitably.
- Utilitarianism: The outcomes should be equal or equitable. The desired utility is often linked to the individual’s happiness.
EX: I have a bike, thus I am happy
What is a Capabilities Approach to justice
The capability approach is a theoretical framework that entails two normative claims:
1. the claim that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance,
2. that well-being should be understood in terms of people’s capabilities and functionings.
Ex: I can move around and I can ride a bike. It’s nice
At what level is unfairness present in the ML pipeline ?
Unfairness is present in the pre-processing as:
1. Historical bias
2. Representation bias
3. Measurement bias
And in the in-processing as:
1. Learning bias
2. Evaluation bias
3. Aggregation bias
4. Deployment bias
What is a historical bias ?
They occurs when an ML model reproduces or
reinforces a harmful stereotypes already existing in the world.
ex: Scores for white defendants were skewed toward lower-risk categories.
Scores for black defendants were not
What is representation bias ?
It occurs when the data is not representative of
the population the model is developed for, or specific categories are largely under-represented.
ex: black women identified by AI as white males wearing black shirts
What is Measurement bias?
They occur when choosing, collecting, or computing the inadequate features and labels to use in a prediction problem.
Features and labels are the concrete measurements chosen to approximate some construct (an idea or concept) that is not directly encoded or observable.
COMPAS ex: number of “arrest” is used measure “crime” or “arrest”
What is Aggregation bias ?
occur when a one-size-fits-all model is used for
data in which there are underlying groups or types of examples that should be considered differently.
EX: Medical applications often risk aggregation bias e.g., patients of different sexes with similar conditions may present different symptoms and progress in different ways.
What is Learning bias ?
They occur when modelling choices amplify disparities.
EX: prioritising overall accuracy during the learning risks amplifying disparate impact.
