Is Algorithmic Affirmative Action Legal
Is Algorithmic Affirmative Action Legal
复制标题
算法平权行动合法吗
DOI：
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Jason R. Bent
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Jason R. Bent
现在可以理解的是，机器学习算法可能会产生无意中的偏向结果。在过去的几年里，法律学者一直在争论《民权法案》第七章下的不同待遇或不同影响理论是否能够保护人们免受算法歧视。但机器学习学者并没有等待法律上的答案。相反，他们一直在努力开发各种各样的技术“公平”解决方案，这些解决方案可以用来约束机器学习算法。他们发现，简单地将算法与受保护的特征(如性别或种族)致盲，不足以防止算法歧视。如果有足够的数据，算法将识别并利用受保护特征的代理。认识到这一点，一些学者提出了“通过意识实现公平”或“算法平权行动”--积极利用种族或性别等敏感变量来抵消未知的偏见来源，并在算法决策中实现某种数学上的公平衡量。但是，算法平权行动合法吗？本文首次在第十四修正案的第七章和平等保护条款下全面审议了这一问题。本文评估了机器学习文献中提出的主要公平技术的合法性，包括群体公平、个人公平和反事实公平。该条的结论是，第七章下现有的平权行动理论和现有的宪法平等保护判例为至少某些形式的算法平权行动留有足够的余地。
It is now understood that machine learning algorithms can produce unintentionally biased results. For the last few years, legal scholars have been debating whether the disparate treatment or disparate impact theories available under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act are capable of protecting against algorithmic discrimination. But machine learning scholars are not waiting for the legal answer. Instead, they have been working to develop a wide variety of technological “fairness” solutions that can be used to constrain machine learning algorithms. They have discovered that simply blinding algorithms to protected characteristics like sex or race is insufficient to prevent algorithmic discrimination. Given enough data, algorithms will identify and leverage on proxies for the protected characteristics. Recognizing this, some scholars have proposed “fairness through awareness” or “algorithmic affirmative action” — actively using sensitive variables like race or sex to counteract unidentified sources of bias and achieve some mathematical measure of fairness in algorithmic decisions. But is algorithmic affirmative action legal? This article is the first to comprehensively consider that question under both Title VII and the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The article evaluates the legality of the leading fairness techniques advanced in the machine learning literature, including group fairness, individual fairness, and counterfactual fairness. The article concludes that existing affirmative action doctrine under Title VII and existing constitutional equal protection jurisprudence leave sufficient room for at least some forms of algorithmic affirmative action.