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Generalized Priority-Aware Shapley Value

Machine Learning 2026-05-15 v1 Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Shapley value and its priority-aware extensions are widely used for valuation in machine learning, but existing methods require pairwise priority to be binary and acyclic, a restriction spectacularly violated in real-data examples such as aggregated human preferences and multi-criterion comparisons. We introduce the generalized priority-aware Shapley value (GPASV), a random order value defined on arbitrary directed weighted priority graphs, in which pairwise edges penalize rather than forbid order violations. GPASV covers a range of classical models as boundary cases. We establish GPASV through an axiomatic characterization, develop the associated computational methods, and introduce a priority sweeping diagnostic extending PASV's. We apply GPASV to LLM ensemble valuation on the cyclic Chatbot Arena preference graph, illustrating that priority-aware valuation is not a one-button operation: different balances of pairwise graph priority versus individual soft priority produce substantively different valuations of the same data.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.15018,
  title  = {Generalized Priority-Aware Shapley Value},
  author = {Kiljae Lee and Ziqi Liu and Weijing Tang and Yuan Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.15018},
  year   = {2026}
}