Long-Term Fairness in Sequential Multi-Agent Selection with Positive Reinforcement

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2407.07350v1
• Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2024 04:03:23 GMT
• Title: Long-Term Fairness in Sequential Multi-Agent Selection with Positive Reinforcement
• Authors: Bhagyashree Puranik, Ozgur Guldogan, Upamanyu Madhow, Ramtin Pedarsani,
• Abstract summary: In selection processes such as college admissions or hiring, biasing slightly towards applicants from under-represented groups is hypothesized to provide positive feedback. We propose the Multi-agent Fair-Greedy policy, which balances greedy score and fairness. Our results indicate that, while positive reinforcement is a promising mechanism for long-term fairness, policies must be designed carefully to be robust to variations in the evolution model.
• Score: 21.44063458579184
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: While much of the rapidly growing literature on fair decision-making focuses on metrics for one-shot decisions, recent work has raised the intriguing possibility of designing sequential decision-making to positively impact long-term social fairness. In selection processes such as college admissions or hiring, biasing slightly towards applicants from under-represented groups is hypothesized to provide positive feedback that increases the pool of under-represented applicants in future selection rounds, thus enhancing fairness in the long term. In this paper, we examine this hypothesis and its consequences in a setting in which multiple agents are selecting from a common pool of applicants. We propose the Multi-agent Fair-Greedy policy, that balances greedy score maximization and fairness. Under this policy, we prove that the resource pool and the admissions converge to a long-term fairness target set by the agents when the score distributions across the groups in the population are identical. We provide empirical evidence of existence of equilibria under non-identical score distributions through synthetic and adapted real-world datasets. We then sound a cautionary note for more complex applicant pool evolution models, under which uncoordinated behavior by the agents can cause negative reinforcement, leading to a reduction in the fraction of under-represented applicants. Our results indicate that, while positive reinforcement is a promising mechanism for long-term fairness, policies must be designed carefully to be robust to variations in the evolution model, with a number of open issues that remain to be explored by algorithm designers, social scientists, and policymakers.

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