arXiv:2604.28030cs.LGcs.AI2026-04

用互信息统一衡量多属性公平性,兼顾复杂群体与多分类场景。

MIFair: A Mutual-Information Framework for Intersectionality and Multiclass Fairness

  • 基于互信息构建统一的公平性度量与优化框架,支持多属性交叉分析。
  • 在真实表格与图像数据上显著降低偏差,同时保持高预测性能。
  • 适合需要处理复杂公平性需求的研究者与实践者使用。

机器学习中的公平性仍面临伦理复杂性、缺乏通用定义以及需依赖上下文的偏差度量等挑战。现有方法在处理交叉公平性、多分类场景及灵活性方面仍有不足。为此,我们提出 MIFair,一种基于互信息的统一公平性评估与缓解框架。该框架提供灵活的度量模板和一种受预设偏见消除器启发的在处理中缓解方法,将群体公平性定义为预测变量与敏感属性之间的统计独立性。进一步通过建立与广泛使用的公平性概念(如独立性与分离性)的等价关系,强化其信息论基础。MIFair天然支持交叉公平性、复杂子群结构与多分类任务,并采用正则化训练减少偏差。其核心优势在于高度通用性:可将多种公平性要求整合为单一框架,实现一致基准测试并简化实际应用。在真实世界表格与图像数据集上的实验表明,MIFair能有效降低偏差,包括此前未被覆盖的多属性场景,且在各类设置下均保持强预测性能。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Fairness in machine learning remains challenging due to its ethical complexity, the absence of a universal definition, and the need for context-specific bias metrics. Existing methods still struggle with intersectionality, multiclass settings, and limited flexibility and generality. To address these gaps, we introduce MIFair, a unified framework for bias assessment and mitigation based on mutual information. MIFair provides a flexible metric template and an in-processing mitigation method inspired by the Prejudice Remover, defining group fairness as statistical independence between prediction-derived variables and sensitive attributes. We further strengthen its information-theoretic foundation by establishing equivalences with widely used fairness notions such as independence and separation. MIFair naturally supports intersectionality, complex subgroup structures, and multiclass classification and employs regularization-based training to reduce bias according to the selected metric. Its key advantage is its versatility: it consolidates diverse fairness requirements into a single coherent framework, enabling consistent benchmarking and simplifying practical use. Experiments on real-world tabular and image datasets show that MIFair effectively reduces bias, including previously unaddressed multi-attribute scenarios, while maintaining strong predictive performance across the evaluated settings.

公平性互信息多分类交叉公平

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。