arXiv:2506.07049cs.LGcs.CY2025-06ICML被引 9

无需先验因果模型,就能识别并消除算法偏见。

FairPFN: A Tabular Foundation Model for Causal Fairness

  • 用合成数据预训练表格基础模型,自动发现保护属性的因果影响。
  • 在真实和手工设计场景中,比现有方法更有效消除偏见。
  • 适合缺乏因果知识但需公平决策的复杂场景,如医疗与金融。

机器学习系统广泛应用于医疗、执法和金融等关键领域,但其训练数据常包含人口偏差,导致算法决策延续甚至加剧社会不平等。因果公平提供透明、可解释的框架以缓解算法歧视,符合直接与间接歧视的法律原则。然而,现有框架依赖正确的因果模型先验知识,在因果关系未知或难以识别的复杂公平场景中应用受限。为此,我们提出 FairPFN——一种在合成因果公平数据上预训练的表格基础模型,用于识别并减轻预测中保护属性的因果效应。其核心贡献在于无需已知因果模型,仍能在多样化手工构造和真实世界场景中,有效识别并消除保护属性的因果影响,性能优于多种稳健基线方法。FairPFN 为未来研究铺平道路,使因果公平更适用于广泛的复杂公平问题。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Machine learning (ML) systems are utilized in critical sectors, such as healthcare, law enforcement, and finance. However, these systems are often trained on historical data that contains demographic biases, leading to ML decisions that perpetuate or exacerbate existing social inequalities. Causal fairness provides a transparent, human-in-the-loop framework to mitigate algorithmic discrimination, aligning closely with legal doctrines of direct and indirect discrimination. However, current causal fairness frameworks hold a key limitation in that they assume prior knowledge of the correct causal model, restricting their applicability in complex fairness scenarios where causal models are unknown or difficult to identify. To bridge this gap, we propose FairPFN, a tabular foundation model pre-trained on synthetic causal fairness data to identify and mitigate the causal effects of protected attributes in its predictions. FairPFN's key contribution is that it requires no knowledge of the causal model and still demonstrates strong performance in identifying and removing protected causal effects across a diverse set of hand-crafted and real-world scenarios relative to robust baseline methods. FairPFN paves the way for promising future research, making causal fairness more accessible to a wider variety of complex fairness problems.

因果公平基础模型偏见消除

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