提出轻量可解释的Transformer,实现高公平性与高效预测
Efficient and Interpretable Transformer for Counterfactual Fairness

- 用特征相关性直接解释注意力矩阵,提升可读性
- 在不平衡数据上实现强反事实公平性,性能优于标准Transformer
- 适合金融保险等需合规与透明决策的高风险场景
机器学习在金融、保险等高风险领域应用日益广泛,但模型需同时满足预测准确性、可解释性与监管公平性要求。尽管基于注意力的Transformer在语言任务中表现优异,但其注意力机制本身无法保证反事实公平性,即使结合公平性技术也存在不足。为此,我们提出特征相关性Transformer(FCorrTransformer),一种专为表格数据设计的轻量注意力架构。该结构使注意力矩阵可直接解读为特征间的配对依赖关系,显著提升可解释性与效率。在此基础上,我们引入反事实注意力正则化(CAR)框架,在注意力层面强制敏感特征的组不变公平表示,从而实现无需显式因果假设的反事实公平预测。在不平衡分类与回归基准上的实证评估表明,FCorrTransformer结合CAR在保持竞争力预测性能的同时,显著降低模型复杂度,并实现更强的反事实公平性。本工作弥合了公平性理论与实际模型之间的差距,为监管敏感领域的负责任AI提供了实用方案。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The growing reliance of machine learning models in high-stakes, highly regulated domains such as finance and insurance has created a growing tension between predictive performance, interpretability, and regulatory fairness requirements. In these settings, models are expected not only to deliver reliable predictions but also to provide transparent decision rationales and comply with strict fairness requirements. Attention-based transformers offer powerful mechanisms for modeling complex data relationships as demonstrated in various language tasks, yet their attention mechanisms alone do not ensure counterfactually fair predictions, even when combined with fairness-aware techniques. To address these limitations, we propose the Feature Correlation Transformer (FCorrTransformer), an attention-light architecture tailored for tabular data. In this design, the attention matrix admits a direct statistical interpretation as pairwise feature dependencies, enhancing both interpretability and efficiency. Leveraging this structure, we introduce Counterfactual Attention Regularization (CAR), a framework that enforces group-invariant fair representations of sensitive features at the attention level, promoting counterfactually fair predictions without relying on explicit causal assumptions. Empirical evaluations on imbalanced classification and regression benchmarks demonstrate that FCorrTransformer combined with CAR achieves strong counterfactual fairness while maintaining competitive predictive performance and substantially reducing model complexity compared with standard transformer-based baselines. Overall, this work bridges a critical gap between fairness theory and machine learning models, offering a practical framework for responsible AI in regulatory-sensitive domains.
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