算法公平应关注社会决定因素,而非仅限敏感属性。
Position: Beyond Sensitive Attributes, ML Fairness Should Quantify Structural Injustice via Social Determinants
- 用社会决定因素替代敏感属性,识别结构性不公
- 仅针对敏感属性的干预可能加剧不公
- 适合关注算法伦理与社会公平的研究者
算法公平研究长期将不公平视为敏感属性上的歧视,但这一视角忽略了通过社会决定因素体现的结构性不公——这些是影响个体属性与结果的上下文变量,不直接关联特定个人。本文主张应以社会决定因素量化结构性不公。基于跨学科洞见,指出现有技术范式常将上下文视为需消除的噪声而非需审计的信号,因而无法捕捉结构性不公。通过高校招生的理论模型、美国人口普查数据的群体分析,以及美国综合医疗系统中乳腺癌筛查的应用案例,我们发现:仅聚焦敏感属性的缓解策略可能引入新的结构性不公。因此,必须先通过社会决定因素审计结构性不公,再开展缓解,并呼吁发展超越敏感属性中心主义的新技术路径。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Algorithmic fairness research has largely framed unfairness as discrimination along sensitive attributes. However, this approach limits visibility into unfairness as structural injustice instantiated through social determinants, which are contextual variables that shape attributes and outcomes without pertaining to specific individuals. This position paper argues that the field should quantify structural injustice via social determinants, beyond sensitive attributes. Drawing on cross-disciplinary insights, we argue that prevailing technical paradigms fail to adequately capture unfairness as structural injustice, because contexts are potentially treated as noise to be normalized rather than signal to be audited. We further demonstrate the practical urgency of this shift through a theoretical model of college admissions, a demographic study using U.S. census data, and a high-stakes domain application regarding breast cancer screening within an integrated U.S. healthcare system. Our results indicate that mitigation strategies centered solely on sensitive attributes can introduce new forms of structural injustice. We contend that auditing structural injustice through social determinants must precede mitigation, and call for new technical developments that move beyond sensitive-attribute-centered notions of fairness as non-discrimination.
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