论文标题
基于因果关系的公平概念的可识别性：一种先进的状态
Identifiability of Causal-based Fairness Notions: A State of the Art
论文作者
论文摘要
机器学习算法通常会对少数群体和代表性不足的子人群产生偏见的结果/预测。因此，公平性是基于机器学习技术的大规模应用的重要要求。最常用的公平概念（例如统计平等，均衡的几率，预测平等等）是观察性的，并且依赖于变量之间的仅相关性。在统计异常（例如辛普森或伯克森的悖论）的情况下，这些概念无法识别出偏见。基于因果关系的公平概念（例如，反事实公平，无歧视歧视等）对这种异常情况有所免疫，因此更可靠地评估公平性。但是，基于因果关系的公平概念的问题是，它们是根据数量（例如因果，反事实和特定路径特定效应）定义的，这些效果并非总是可衡量的。这被称为可识别性问题，是因果推理文献中大量工作的主题。本文是对机器学习公平性特别相关的主要可识别性结果的汇编。使用大量示例和因果图说明了结果。公平研究人员，从业人员和政策制定者正在考虑使用基于因果关系的公平概念，并说明主要可识别性结果，这本文特别感兴趣。
Machine learning algorithms can produce biased outcome/prediction, typically, against minorities and under-represented sub-populations. Therefore, fairness is emerging as an important requirement for the large scale application of machine learning based technologies. The most commonly used fairness notions (e.g. statistical parity, equalized odds, predictive parity, etc.) are observational and rely on mere correlation between variables. These notions fail to identify bias in case of statistical anomalies such as Simpson's or Berkson's paradoxes. Causality-based fairness notions (e.g. counterfactual fairness, no-proxy discrimination, etc.) are immune to such anomalies and hence more reliable to assess fairness. The problem of causality-based fairness notions, however, is that they are defined in terms of quantities (e.g. causal, counterfactual, and path-specific effects) that are not always measurable. This is known as the identifiability problem and is the topic of a large body of work in the causal inference literature. This paper is a compilation of the major identifiability results which are of particular relevance for machine learning fairness. The results are illustrated using a large number of examples and causal graphs. The paper would be of particular interest to fairness researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who are considering the use of causality-based fairness notions as it summarizes and illustrates the major identifiability results
