<p>The Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy AI list four principles:</p>
<ol>
<li>Respect for human autonomy</li>
<li>Prevention of harm</li>
<li>Fairness</li>
<li>Explicability</li>
</ol>
<p>In fairness, two dimensions are considered.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The substantive dimension implies a commitment to: ensuring equal and
just distribution of both benefits and costs, and ensuring that
individuals and groups are free from unfair bias, discrimination and
stigmatisation. If unfair biases can be avoided, AI systems could even
increase societal fairness. Equal opportunity in terms of access to
education, goods, services and technology should also be fostered.
Moreover, the use of AI systems should never lead to people being
deceived or unjustifiably impaired in their freedom of choice.
Additionally, fairness implies that AI practitioners should respect
the principle of proportionality between means and ends, and consider
carefully how to balance competing interests and objectives.</p>
<p>The procedural dimension of fairness entails the ability to contest
and seek effective redress against decisions made by AI systems and by
the humans operating them. In order to do so, the entity accountable
for the decision must be identifiable, and the decision-making
processes should be explicable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-22T16:47:21.143Z
Thanks for the answer! My question specifically mentioned Fairness in machine learning. How does this definition translate to definitions/applications in machine learning?
Robin van Hoorn
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-22T18:46:52.397Z
@RobinvanHoorn consider a ML system (e.g. classifier) used in banking to rank possibly bad future/current clients. You don't want such a system to base its predictions solely or mostly on features like gender, age, race, etc.
Luca Anzalone
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-22T19:25:17.653Z
I understand the abstract definition and how i'd want my system to behave accordingly. But when can i say that my model is fair? Can i test it? Can i give my model incentives to converge to a 'fair' state? How is this incorporated into machine learning?
Robin van Hoorn
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-22T15:42:23.637Z
2023-05-22T15:42:23.637Z
Jaume Oliver Lafont
<p>How does one define the concept of fairness in machine learning? I've seen the term lots of times but never used it myself in research (<a href="https://fairmlbook.org/pdf/fairmlbook.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1</a>, <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3457607?casa_token=L1X2a8FI0SIAAAAA:xVo0kmwoeG6CtxW4faM2R_-5lNj0h6WXPqB1dp4YctON81ZIJNkJ9nOPGB7LNv7otWWhdpGRjs_z" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2</a>). Is there a generally agreed-upon definition of fairness in machine learning? What are the different aspects of fairness? Or the intuition behind the concept of fairness?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-21T18:27:16.713Z
It might be a good idea to provide 1-2 links/quotes that use this term. I've seen it in the context of explainable AI.
nbro
<machine-learning><definitions>
What is 'fairness' in machine learning?
Robin van Hoorn
# What is 'fairness' in machine learning?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-05-21)

How does one define the concept of fairness in machine learning? I've seen the term lots of times but never used it myself in research ([1](https://fairmlbook.org/pdf/fairmlbook.pdf), [2](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3457607?casa_token=L1X2a8FI0SIAAAAA:xVo0kmwoeG6CtxW4faM2R_-5lNj0h6WXPqB1dp4YctON81ZIJNkJ9nOPGB7LNv7otWWhdpGRjs_z)). Is there a generally agreed-upon definition of fairness in machine learning? What are the different aspects of fairness? Or the intuition behind the concept of fairness?

**Tags:** machine-learning, definitions

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: It might be a good idea to provide 1-2 links/quotes that use this term. I've seen it in the context of explainable AI.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2023-05-22. Score: 0

The Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy AI list four principles:

1. Respect for human autonomy
2. Prevention of harm
3. Fairness
4. Explicability

In fairness, two dimensions are considered.

> The substantive dimension implies a commitment to: ensuring equal and
> just distribution of both benefits and costs, and ensuring that
> individuals and groups are free from unfair bias, discrimination and
> stigmatisation. If unfair biases can be avoided, AI systems could even
> increase societal fairness. Equal opportunity in terms of access to
> education, goods, services and technology should also be fostered.
> Moreover, the use of AI systems should never lead to people being
> deceived or unjustifiably impaired in their freedom of choice.
> Additionally, fairness implies that AI practitioners should respect
> the principle of proportionality between means and ends, and consider
> carefully how to balance competing interests and objectives.
>
> The procedural dimension of fairness entails the ability to contest
> and seek effective redress against decisions made by AI systems and by
> the humans operating them. In order to do so, the entity accountable
> for the decision must be identifiable, and the decision-making
> processes should be explicable.

<https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai>

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for the answer! My question specifically mentioned Fairness in machine learning. How does this definition translate to definitions/applications in machine learning?  
> **username_3**: @RobinvanHoorn consider a ML system (e.g. classifier) used in banking to rank possibly bad future/current clients. You don't want such a system to base its predictions solely or mostly on features like gender, age, race, etc.  
> **username_0**: I understand the abstract definition and how i'd want my system to behave accordingly. But when can i say that my model is fair? Can i test it? Can i give my model incentives to converge to a 'fair' state? How is this incorporated into machine learning?  

---

