提出新算法实现高精度公平聚类,避免传统方法的数值不稳问题。
Fair Clustering via Alignment
- 通过交替优化对齐分布与聚类中心,分解公平K均值目标函数
- 在任意公平度下逼近最优聚类效用,实测接近完美公平性
- 适合对公平性与稳定性要求高的实际聚类场景
算法公平聚类旨在平衡不同敏感属性群体在各聚类中的分配比例。尽管近期已有公平聚类算法在特定公平约束下优化聚类目标,但其固有的复杂性或近似性常导致聚类效用下降或数值不稳定。为此,我们提出一种基于公平K均值目标函数新分解的新算法——公平对齐聚类(FCA)。FCA通过交替执行:(i) 构建联合概率分布以对齐不同受保护群体的数据;(ii) 在对齐空间中优化聚类中心。其关键优势在于,理论上可保证在任意给定公平水平下获得近似最优聚类效用,无需复杂约束,从而实现高效用的公平聚类。实验表明,FCA优于现有方法:(i) 实现更优的公平性与聚类效用权衡;(ii) 达到近乎完美的公平性且无数值不稳定性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Algorithmic fairness in clustering aims to balance the proportions of instances assigned to each cluster with respect to a given sensitive attribute. While recently developed fair clustering algorithms optimize clustering objectives under specific fairness constraints, their inherent complexity or approximation often results in suboptimal clustering utility or numerical instability in practice. To resolve these limitations, we propose a new fair clustering algorithm based on a novel decomposition of the fair $K$-means clustering objective function. The proposed algorithm, called Fair Clustering via Alignment (FCA), operates by alternately (i) finding a joint probability distribution to align the data from different protected groups, and (ii) optimizing cluster centers in the aligned space. A key advantage of FCA is that it theoretically guarantees approximately optimal clustering utility for any given fairness level without complex constraints, thereby enabling high-utility fair clustering in practice. Experiments show that FCA outperforms existing methods by (i) attaining a superior trade-off between fairness level and clustering utility, and (ii) achieving near-perfect fairness without numerical instability.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。