Difference between revisions of "Meeting Schedule"

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| 02/28/2024 || Kathy McKeowan & Robin Burke
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| 02/28/2024 || Kathy McKeowan & short talk by Robin Burke
  
Title: Multistakeholder fairness in recommender systems
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Kathy's web page: ''' https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~kathy/
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Title of Robin Burke talk: Multistakeholder fairness in recommender systems
 
   
 
   
 
Abstract: Research in machine learning fairness makes two key simplifying assumptions that have proven challenging to move beyond. One assumption is that we can productively concentrate on a uni-dimensional version of the problem: achieving fairness for a single protected group defined by a single sensitive feature. The second assumption is that technical solutions need not engage with the essentially political nature of claims surrounding fairness. I argue that relaxing these assumptions is necessary for machine learning fairness to achieve practical utility. While some recent research in rich subgroup fairness has considered ways to relax the first assumption, these approaches require that fairness be defined in the same way for all groups, which amounts to a hardening of the second assumption. In this talk, I argue for a formulation of machine learning fairness based on social choice and exemplify the approach in the area of recommender systems. Social choice is inherently multi-agent, escaping the single group assumption and, in its classic formulation, places no constraints on agents' preferences. In addition, social choice was developed to formalize political decision-making mechanisms, such as elections, and therefore offers some hope of directly addressing the inherent politics of fairness. Social choice has complexities of its own, however, and the talk will outline a research agenda aimed at understanding the challenges and opportunities afforded by this approach to machine learning fairness.
 
Abstract: Research in machine learning fairness makes two key simplifying assumptions that have proven challenging to move beyond. One assumption is that we can productively concentrate on a uni-dimensional version of the problem: achieving fairness for a single protected group defined by a single sensitive feature. The second assumption is that technical solutions need not engage with the essentially political nature of claims surrounding fairness. I argue that relaxing these assumptions is necessary for machine learning fairness to achieve practical utility. While some recent research in rich subgroup fairness has considered ways to relax the first assumption, these approaches require that fairness be defined in the same way for all groups, which amounts to a hardening of the second assumption. In this talk, I argue for a formulation of machine learning fairness based on social choice and exemplify the approach in the area of recommender systems. Social choice is inherently multi-agent, escaping the single group assumption and, in its classic formulation, places no constraints on agents' preferences. In addition, social choice was developed to formalize political decision-making mechanisms, such as elections, and therefore offers some hope of directly addressing the inherent politics of fairness. Social choice has complexities of its own, however, and the talk will outline a research agenda aimed at understanding the challenges and opportunities afforded by this approach to machine learning fairness.

Revision as of 14:56, 21 February 2024

Location: Hybrid - Buchanan 430, and the zoom link below

Time: Wednesdays at 10:30am, Mountain Time

Zoom link: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/97014876908

Date Title
01/24/2024 Planning, introductions, welcome!
01/31/2024 Brunch Social
02/07/2024 No Meeting - Virtual PhD Open House
02/14/2024 ACL paper clinic
02/21/2024 Cancelled in favor of LING Circle talk by Professor Gibbs


02/28/2024 Kathy McKeowan & short talk by Robin Burke

Kathy's web page: https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~kathy/

Title of Robin Burke talk: Multistakeholder fairness in recommender systems

Abstract: Research in machine learning fairness makes two key simplifying assumptions that have proven challenging to move beyond. One assumption is that we can productively concentrate on a uni-dimensional version of the problem: achieving fairness for a single protected group defined by a single sensitive feature. The second assumption is that technical solutions need not engage with the essentially political nature of claims surrounding fairness. I argue that relaxing these assumptions is necessary for machine learning fairness to achieve practical utility. While some recent research in rich subgroup fairness has considered ways to relax the first assumption, these approaches require that fairness be defined in the same way for all groups, which amounts to a hardening of the second assumption. In this talk, I argue for a formulation of machine learning fairness based on social choice and exemplify the approach in the area of recommender systems. Social choice is inherently multi-agent, escaping the single group assumption and, in its classic formulation, places no constraints on agents' preferences. In addition, social choice was developed to formalize political decision-making mechanisms, such as elections, and therefore offers some hope of directly addressing the inherent politics of fairness. Social choice has complexities of its own, however, and the talk will outline a research agenda aimed at understanding the challenges and opportunities afforded by this approach to machine learning fairness.

Bio: Information Science Department Chair and Professor Robin Burke conducts research in personalized recommender systems, a field he helped found and develop. His most recent projects explore fairness, accountability and transparency in recommendation through the integration of objectives from diverse stakeholders. Professor Burke is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed articles in various areas of artificial intelligence including recommender systems, machine learning and information retrieval. His work has received support from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Commission and the MacArthur Foundation, among others.

03/06/2024 Jon's Proposal
03/13/2024 Veronica Qing Lyu, Faithful Chain of Thought Reasoning
03/20/2024 Cory Paik's Area Exam
03/27/2024 No Meeting - Spring Break
04/03/2024 CLASIC Industry Day
04/10/2024 Rehan's Dissertation Defense
04/17/2024 Maggie's Proposal
04/24/2024 Téa's Senior Thesis Defense
05/01/2024 Sagi's Proposal


Past Schedules