arXiv:2502.12874cs.LG2025-02

用分布相似性测试因果公平性,解决高维数据下传统方法不可靠的问题。

Testing for Causal Fairness

  • 将公平性检验转化为敏感属性的反事实分布接近性测试
  • 提出N-TE统计量,通过ε参数灵活检测不公平性
  • 在多个真实场景中验证了测试结果的一致性和敏感性

因果推断被广泛用于公平性分析,以避免在职业招聘中的性别或犯罪预测中的种族歧视。然而,当前基于数据的潜在结果框架(POF)在处理高维数据时常导致不可靠的公平性结论。为此,我们提出一种基于分布的POF,将公平性分析转化为分布接近性检验(DCT),通过干预敏感属性实现。定义反事实接近性公平为DCT的零假设:当实际与反事实潜在结果分布足够接近时,敏感属性被视为公平。引入范数自适应最大均值差异处理效应(N-TE)作为分布接近性的度量,并使用其经验估计量进行检验,称为反事实公平-接近性检验(CF-CLOT)。通过严格理论分析建立了N-TE的检验一致性。CF-CLOT在多个真实场景中成功识别出不公平的敏感属性,验证了测试的一致性,且通过ε参数展现出对公平性变化的敏感性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Causality is widely used in fairness analysis to prevent discrimination on sensitive attributes, such as genders in career recruitment and races in crime prediction. However, the current data-based Potential Outcomes Framework (POF) often leads to untrustworthy fairness analysis results when handling high-dimensional data. To address this, we introduce a distribution-based POF that transform fairness analysis into Distributional Closeness Testing (DCT) by intervening on sensitive attributes. We define counterfactual closeness fairness as the null hypothesis of DCT, where a sensitive attribute is considered fair if its factual and counterfactual potential outcome distributions are sufficiently close. We introduce the Norm-Adaptive Maximum Mean Discrepancy Treatment Effect (N-TE) as a statistic for measuring distributional closeness and apply DCT using the empirical estimator of NTE, referred to Counterfactual Fairness-CLOseness Testing ($\textrm{CF-CLOT}$). To ensure the trustworthiness of testing results, we establish the testing consistency of N-TE through rigorous theoretical analysis. $\textrm{CF-CLOT}$ demonstrates sensitivity in fairness analysis through the flexibility of the closeness parameter $ε$. Unfair sensitive attributes have been successfully tested by $\textrm{CF-CLOT}$ in extensive experiments across various real-world scenarios, which validate the consistency of the testing.

因果公平分布检验反事实可解释性

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