
Fairness Definitions Explained [pdf] - Anon84
http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~mjulia/publications/Fairness_Definitions_Explained_2018.pdf
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enaaem
I would say fairness is when people have peace with the outcome. If the
mechanism behind an algorithm cannot be easily explained, then the outcome
will be disputed. That is why I think fancy ML algorithms will never be
considered fair.

Note that fairness and equality are not the same thing. For example, what is
the most fair way to share one cake among two people? First person cuts,
second person chooses. It's unlikely that the cake is equally divided, but
neither can object the outcome, if they agreed with the mechanism beforehand.

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Kednicma
Interestingly, all of the definitions are a little short of true equality,
true equity, true fairness of outcomes, etc. since they only take one POV into
account. For a precise example, they give causal discrimination for a
classifier based on whether the classifier can tell apart two subjects with
the same attributes. Note that, if _no_ classifier can tell apart the
subjects, then they are genuinely indistinguishable; the universe itself
cannot casually discriminate between them either.

It's interesting that folks are slowly inching towards genuine algorithmic
justice, but we are still focused on defining fairness from the POV of a
single judge, and not from the entire integrated awareness of every
participant in the community. I suppose that the latter is uncomputable...

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AlexTWithBeard
Sorry, I do not understand you.

Even the cake cutting problem you mentioned below takes into account both
POVs.

I'll also echo the sibling: what is true fairness? If it matches individual
POVs, then why bother? If it doesn't then what's the use of it?

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Kednicma
True fairness is justice: Everybody involved agrees that everybody involved
has the best possible material outcome for themselves, even under permutations
of perspective.

Concretely, imagine some judge Judy who is judging some dispute between some
Alice and Bob. The article explores how we can evaluate Judy for fairness.
However, justice is when Judy, Alice, and Bob all agree on an outcome which
none of the three would change, _even if_ they were to be forced to swap
bodies in some unrelated way after the outcome is assigned.

