提出多跳公平性,解决图链接预测中群体内部的隐性偏见问题。
k-hop Fairness: Addressing Disparities in Graph Link Prediction Beyond First-Order Neighborhoods
- 基于节点间距离定义多跳公平性,超越传统双元公平视角。
- 实验证明模型在不同跳数下均存在结构偏见,且跳数间相互影响。
- 后处理方法在公平性与性能间取得更好平衡,适合社会推荐场景。
链接预测在图应用中至关重要,尤其在社交推荐中。然而真实图常反映结构性偏见,如同质性(同属性节点更易连接),虽提升预测性能,却可能加剧社会不公。现有公平性方法多关注跨组连接(如性别差异),即所谓双元公平,但忽视组内潜在偏见。为此,本文提出k-hop公平性,一种基于节点间图距离的公平性度量,通过预测公平性和结构偏见指标形式化,并设计预处理与后处理缓解策略。在标准链接预测基准上实验显示:(1) 模型在不同跳数下普遍存在结构偏见;(2) 图重连时各跳数间的结构偏见存在相互依赖;(3) 所提后处理方法相比现有公平基线,在k-hop性能-公平性权衡上表现更优。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Link prediction (LP) plays a central role in graph-based applications, particularly in social recommendation. However, real-world graphs often reflect structural biases, most notably homophily, the tendency of nodes with similar attributes to connect. While this property can improve predictive performance, it also risks reinforcing existing social disparities. In response, fairness-aware LP methods have emerged, often seeking to mitigate these effects by promoting inter-group connections, that is, links between nodes with differing sensitive attributes (e.g., gender), following the principle of dyadic fairness. However, dyadic fairness overlooks potential disparities within the sensitive groups themselves. To overcome this issue, we propose $k$-hop fairness, a structural notion of fairness for LP, that assesses disparities conditioned on the distance between nodes in the graph. We formalize this notion through predictive fairness and structural bias metrics, and propose pre- and post-processing mitigation strategies. Experiments across standard LP benchmarks reveal: (1) a strong tendency of models to reproduce structural biases at different $k$-hops; (2) interdependence between structural biases at different hops when rewiring graphs; and (3) that our post-processing method achieves favorable $k$-hop performance-fairness trade-offs compared to existing fair LP baselines.
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