Related papers: On Statistical Discrimination as a Failure of Soci…
It is well known that in stochastic multi-armed bandits (MAB), the sample mean of an arm is typically not an unbiased estimator of its true mean. In this paper, we decouple three different sources of this selection bias: adaptive…
In this paper we present a model for the hidden Markovian bandit problem with linear rewards. As opposed to current work on Markovian bandits, we do not assume that the state is known to the decision maker before making the decision.…
Adaptive experiments such as multi-arm bandits adapt the treatment-allocation policy and/or the decision to stop the experiment to the data observed so far. This has the potential to improve outcomes for study participants within the…
The most prevalent notions of fairness in machine learning are statistical definitions: they fix a small collection of pre-defined groups, and then ask for parity of some statistic of the classifier across these groups. Constraints of this…
A robust body of evidence demonstrates the adverse effects of implicit bias in various contexts--from hiring to health care. The Rooney Rule is an intervention developed to counter implicit bias and has been implemented in the private and…
We investigate a natural but surprisingly unstudied approach to the multi-armed bandit problem under safety risk constraints. Each arm is associated with an unknown law on safety risks and rewards, and the learner's goal is to maximise…
Bandit algorithms are widely used in sequential decision problems to maximize the cumulative reward. One potential application is mobile health, where the goal is to promote the user's health through personalized interventions based on user…
Understanding, predicting, and learning from other people's actions are fundamental human social-cognitive skills. Little is known about how and when we consider other's actions and outcomes when making our own decisions. We developed a…
In this paper, we introduce a multi-armed bandit problem termed max-min grouped bandits, in which the arms are arranged in possibly-overlapping groups, and the goal is to find the group whose worst arm has the highest mean reward. This…
We consider settings in which we wish to incentivize myopic agents (such as Airbnb landlords, who may emphasize short-term profits and property safety) to treat arriving clients fairly, in order to prevent overall discrimination against…
The dynamic allocation problem, also known as the `multi-armed bandit' problem, simulates a situation in which an agent is faced with a tradeoff between actions that yield an immediate reward and actions whose benefits can only be perceived…
This paper examines the impact of racial discrimination in hiring on employment, wages, and wealth disparities between black and white workers. Using a labor search-and-matching model with racially prejudiced and non-prejudiced firms, we…
A key feature of sequential decision making under uncertainty is a need to balance between exploiting--choosing the best action according to the current knowledge, and exploring--obtaining information about values of other actions. The…
This paper considers a contextual bandit problem involving multiple agents, where a learner sequentially observes the contexts and the agent's reported arms, and then selects the arm that maximizes the system's overall reward. Existing work…
We study the interplay of information and prior (mis)perceptions in a Phelps-Aigner-Cain-type model of statistical discrimination in the labor market. We decompose the effect on average pay of an increase in how informative observables are…
With the availability of big medical image data, the selection of an adequate training set is becoming more important to address the heterogeneity of different datasets. Simply including all the data does not only incur high processing…
Restless multi-armed bandits (RMAB) is a framework for allocating limited resources under uncertainty. It is an extremely useful model for monitoring beneficiaries and executing timely interventions to ensure maximum benefit in public…
U.S. discrimination law can impose liability on firms that fail to adopt a less discriminatory alternative (LDA): a decision policy that achieves the same business objectives while reducing disparate impact on legally protected groups.…
We study fairness within the stochastic, \emph{multi-armed bandit} (MAB) decision making framework. We adapt the fairness framework of "treating similar individuals similarly" to this setting. Here, an `individual' corresponds to an arm and…
Automated data-driven decision making systems are increasingly being used to assist, or even replace humans in many settings. These systems function by learning from historical decisions, often taken by humans. In order to maximize the…