研究如何通过设计分类器,引导用户在决策中投入有益努力。
Incentivizing Desirable Effort Profiles in Strategic Classification: The Role of Causality and Uncertainty
- 考虑特征间的因果关系,分析用户如何调整自身特征以获得更好结果。
- 在完全信息下,可设计分类器使用户专注理想特征;但一般情况非凸,难解。
- 不确定性下用户倾向选预期收益高、波动小的特征,可能偏离设计者意图。
我们研究二元决策场景下的战略分类问题,其中个体可通过改变自身特征来提升分类结果。关键在于考虑特征间的因果结构——某特征的努力可能影响其他特征。研究核心是理解:在何种条件下,个体愿意在理想特征上投入多少努力?这一行为受部署分类器、特征因果结构、个体修改能力以及对分类器与因果图的信息掌握程度的影响。在完全信息情形下,我们推导出理性个体聚焦于主体制定偏好的特征的条件,并发现诱导理想行为的分类器设计通常为非凸问题,仅在特殊情况下可解。我们还扩展至个体对分类器或因果图信息不全的情形。尽管一般情况下最优努力选择仍为非凸,但在部分不确定性情形下可实现可解。结果显示,不确定性促使个体更青睐预期重要性高、方差低的特征,可能导致与主体制定目标的错配。最后,基于心血管疾病风险预测的研究,数值实验展示了在不确定性下如何激励理想特征的修改。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We study strategic classification in binary decision-making settings where agents can modify their features in order to improve their classification outcomes. Importantly, our work considers the causal structure across different features, acknowledging that effort in a given feature may affect other features. The main goal of our work is to understand \emph{when and how much agent effort is invested towards desirable features}, and how this is influenced by the deployed classifier, the causal structure of the agent's features, their ability to modify them, and the information available to the agent about the classifier and the feature causal graph. In the complete information case, when agents know the classifier and the causal structure of the problem, we derive conditions ensuring that rational agents focus on features favored by the principal. We show that designing classifiers to induce desirable behavior is generally non-convex, though tractable in special cases. We also extend our analysis to settings where agents have incomplete information about the classifier or the causal graph. While optimal effort selection is again a non-convex problem under general uncertainty, we highlight special cases of partial uncertainty where this selection problem becomes tractable. Our results indicate that uncertainty drives agents to favor features with higher expected importance and lower variance, potentially misaligning with principal preferences. Finally, numerical experiments based on a cardiovascular disease risk study illustrate how to incentivize desirable modifications under uncertainty.
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