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Incentive-Aware Machine Learning; Robustness, Fairness, Improvement & Causality

Computer Science and Game Theory 2025-05-09 v1 Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The article explores the emerging domain of incentive-aware machine learning (ML), which focuses on algorithmic decision-making in contexts where individuals can strategically modify their inputs to influence outcomes. It categorizes the research into three perspectives: robustness, aiming to design models resilient to "gaming"; fairness, analyzing the societal impacts of such systems; and improvement/causality, recognizing situations where strategic actions lead to genuine personal or societal improvement. The paper introduces a unified framework encapsulating models for these perspectives, including offline, online, and causal settings, and highlights key challenges such as differentiating between gaming and improvement and addressing heterogeneity among agents. By synthesizing findings from diverse works, we outline theoretical advancements and practical solutions for robust, fair, and causally-informed incentive-aware ML systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.05211,
  title  = {Incentive-Aware Machine Learning; Robustness, Fairness, Improvement & Causality},
  author = {Chara Podimata},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.05211},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

This literature review was published in SIGEcom Exchanges in 2025

R2 v1 2026-06-28T23:25:44.154Z