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Interactive constraint systems often suffer from infeasibility (no solution) due to conflicting user constraints. A common approach to recover infeasibility is to eliminate the constraints that cause the conflicts in the system. This…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-04-08 Sharmi Dev Gupta , Begum Genc , Barry O'Sullivan

In this expository paper, we consider the problem of causal inference and efficient estimation for the counterfactual survivor function. This problem has previously been considered in the literature in several papers, each relying on the…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-02 Benjamin R. Baer , Ashkan Ertefaie , Robert L. Strawderman

The increasing application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning models poses potential risks of unfair behavior and, in light of recent regulations, has attracted the attention of the research community. Several researchers…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-17 Giandomenico Cornacchia , Vito Walter Anelli , Fedelucio Narducci , Azzurra Ragone , Eugenio Di Sciascio

We address a practical problem ubiquitous in modern marketing campaigns, in which a central agent tries to learn a policy for allocating strategic financial incentives to customers and observes only bandit feedback. In contrast to…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-11-12 Romain Lopez , Chenchen Li , Xiang Yan , Junwu Xiong , Michael I. Jordan , Yuan Qi , Le Song

We bound features of counterfactual choices in the nonparametric random utility model of demand, i.e. if observable choices are repeated cross-sections and one allows for unrestricted, unobserved heterogeneity. In this setting, tight bounds…

Econometrics · Economics 2019-05-21 Yuichi Kitamura , Jörg Stoye

In this paper, I argue that counterfactual fairness does not constitute a necessary condition for an algorithm to be fair, and subsequently suggest how the constraint can be modified in order to remedy this shortcoming. To this end, I…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-17 Fabian Beigang

Reinforcement learning algorithms are generally designed to maximize the expected return across a population. However, a policy that is optimal on average may be suboptimal for certain individuals, leading to potential safety concerns. To…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-26 Jingyi Li , Peng Wu , Chengchun Shi

In many applications, it is important to be able to explain the decisions of machine learning systems. An increasingly popular approach has been to seek to provide \emph{counterfactual instance explanations}. These specify close possible…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-09-22 Adam White , Artur d'Avila Garcez

Machine learning plays a role in many deployed decision systems, often in ways that are difficult or impossible to understand by human stakeholders. Explaining, in a human-understandable way, the relationship between the input and output of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-17 Sahil Verma , Varich Boonsanong , Minh Hoang , Keegan E. Hines , John P. Dickerson , Chirag Shah

Estimating an individual's potential outcomes under counterfactual treatments is a challenging task for traditional causal inference and supervised learning approaches when the outcome is high-dimensional (e.g. gene expressions, impulse…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-13 Yulun Wu , Layne C. Price , Zichen Wang , Vassilis N. Ioannidis , Robert A. Barton , George Karypis

AI-driven outcomes can be challenging for end-users to understand. Explanations can address two key questions: "Why this outcome?" (factual) and "Why not another?" (counterfactual). While substantial efforts have been made to formalize…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-03-21 Suryani Lim , Henri Prade , Gilles Richard

We study settings in which a researcher has an instrumental variable (IV) and seeks to evaluate the effects of a counterfactual policy that alters treatment assignment, such as a directive encouraging randomly assigned judges to release…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-03-16 Michal Kolesár , José Luis Montiel Olea , Jonathan Roth

This paper proposes a novel approach for constructing effective personalized policies when the observed data lacks counter-factual information, is biased and possesses many features. The approach is applicable in a wide variety of settings…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-07-11 Onur Atan , William R. Zame , Qiaojun Feng , Mihaela van der Schaar

We consider after-study statistical inference for sequentially designed experiments wherein multiple units are assigned treatments for multiple time points using treatment policies that adapt over time. Our goal is to provide inference…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-10 Raaz Dwivedi , Katherine Tian , Sabina Tomkins , Predrag Klasnja , Susan Murphy , Devavrat Shah

Counterfactuals and counterfactual reasoning underpin numerous techniques for auditing and understanding artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The traditional paradigm for counterfactual reasoning in this literature is the interventional…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-01-26 Lucius E. J. Bynum , Joshua R. Loftus , Julia Stoyanovich

Learning-based approaches, such as reinforcement and imitation learning are gaining popularity in decision-making for autonomous driving. However, learned policies often fail to generalize and cannot handle novel situations well. Asking and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-13 Patrick Hart , Alois Knoll

Counterfactual explanations are gaining prominence within technical, legal, and business circles as a way to explain the decisions of a machine learning model. These explanations share a trait with the long-established "principal reason"…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2019-12-12 Solon Barocas , Andrew D. Selbst , Manish Raghavan

Counterfactual inference is a powerful tool for analysing and evaluating autonomous agents, but its application to language model (LM) agents remains challenging. Existing work on counterfactuals in LMs has primarily focused on token-level…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-04 Edoardo Pona , Milad Kazemi , Yali Du , David Watson , Nicola Paoletti

Reinforcement learning (RL) systems can be complex and non-interpretable, making it challenging for non-AI experts to understand or intervene in their decisions. This is due in part to the sequential nature of RL in which actions are chosen…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-04-16 Amal Alabdulkarim , Madhuri Singh , Gennie Mansi , Kaely Hall , Upol Ehsan , Mark O. Riedl

Counterfactuals are often described as 'retrospective,' focusing on hypothetical alternatives to a realized past. This description relates to an often implicit assumption about the structure and stability of exogenous variables in the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-12-09 Lucius E. J. Bynum , Joshua R. Loftus , Julia Stoyanovich