In plain words: When a sensitive trait changes a decision fairly and unfairly, this approach fixes the measurements it unfairly altered and decides from those cleaned values. Unlike the usual trick of computing each unfair pathway's effect, it keeps fair information and works in complicated, non-linear cases.
Abstract · Path-Specific Counterfactual Fairness
We consider the problem of learning fair decision systems in complex scenarios in which a sensitive attribute might affect the decision along both fair and unfair pathways. We introduce a causal approach to disregard effects along unfair pathways that simplifies and generalizes previous literature. Our method corrects observations adversely affected by the sensitive attribute, and uses these to form a decision. This avoids disregarding fair information, and does not require an often intractable computation of the path-specific effect. We leverage recent developments in deep learning and approximate inference to achieve a solution that is widely applicable to complex, non-linear scenarios.
Silvia Chiappa, Thomas P. S. Gillam
arXiv:1802.08139 · stat.ML · submitted Feb 22, 2018
abstract · pdf · html