arXiv:2505.16494cs.LG2025-05

在复杂标签数据中,公平性与效率的权衡由计算难度决定。

Accuracy vs. Accuracy: Computational Tradeoffs Between Classification Rates and Utility

  • 提出新算法,实现基于证据的更强公平性
  • 可同时保持子群体分类准确率和损失最小化
  • 揭示公平与效率的计算困境,适合关注公平算法研究者

我们重新审视了在包含个体类型、排序或风险估计等丰富标签的数据设置下,公平性与效用、效率之间的关系。在此背景下,我们提出算法,实现比传统监督学习更强的基于证据的公平性。所提方法支持分类与排序技术,能在广泛分类规则和下游应用中保持子群体分类率的准确性,符合底层数据分布。此外,预测器能实现损失最小化,无论目标是最大化效用还是促进公平对待。补充算法贡献,我们给出不可能性结果:在某些情况下,同时实现高分类准确率和最优损失最小化在计算上不可行。不同于以往的冲突性结论,我们的两个概念并不本质矛盾,且贝叶斯最优预测器可同时满足二者。但学习一个足够接近贝叶斯最优预测器的近似解是计算困难的。因此,这种分离源于学习近似最优解的计算难题。这表明,在公平性驱动的场景下,需在两种自然且可实现的准确性定义之间做出选择。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

We revisit the foundations of fairness and its interplay with utility and efficiency in settings where the training data contain richer labels, such as individual types, rankings, or risk estimates, rather than just binary outcomes. In this context, we propose algorithms that achieve stronger notions of evidence-based fairness than are possible in standard supervised learning. Our methods support classification and ranking techniques that preserve accurate subpopulation classification rates, as suggested by the underlying data distributions, across a broad class of classification rules and downstream applications. Furthermore, our predictors enable loss minimization, whether aimed at maximizing utility or in the service of fair treatment. Complementing our algorithmic contributions, we present impossibility results demonstrating that simultaneously achieving accurate classification rates and optimal loss minimization is, in some cases, computationally infeasible. Unlike prior impossibility results, our notions are not inherently in conflict and are simultaneously satisfied by the Bayes-optimal predictor. Furthermore, we show that each notion can be satisfied individually via efficient learning. Our separation thus stems from the computational hardness of learning a sufficiently good approximation of the Bayes-optimal predictor. These computational impossibilities present a choice between two natural and attainable notions of accuracy that could both be motivated by fairness.

公平性计算复杂性分类准确率效用优化

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