Related papers: Making Decisions under Outcome Performativity
Many real-world problems require making sequences of decisions where the outcomes of each decision are probabilistic and uncertain, and the availability of different actions is constrained by the outcomes of previous actions. There is a…
Predictive algorithms inform consequential decisions in settings with selective labels: outcomes are observed only for units selected by past decision makers. This creates an identification problem under unobserved confounding -- when…
A fundamental question in data-driven decision making is how to quantify the uncertainty of predictions in ways that can usefully inform downstream action. This interface between prediction uncertainty and decision-making is especially…
An important factor in the practical implementation of optimization models is the acceptance by the intended users. This is influenced among other factors by the interpretability of the solution process. Decision rules that meet this…
Based on NFL game data we try to predict the outcome of a play in multiple different ways. An application of this is the following: by plugging in various play options one could determine the best play for a given situation in real time.…
The study of intelligent systems explains behaviour in terms of economic rationality. This results in an optimization principle involving a function or utility, which states that the system will evolve until the configuration of maximum…
The efficacy of robust optimization spans a variety of settings with uncertainties bounded in predetermined sets. In many applications, uncertainties are affected by decisions and cannot be modeled with current frameworks. This paper takes…
Ou et al. (2022) introduce the problem of learning set functions from data generated by a so-called optimal subset oracle. Their approach approximates the underlying utility function with an energy-based model, whose parameters are…
Decision making under uncertainty is at the heart of any autonomous system acting with imperfect information. The cost of solving the decision making problem is exponential in the action and observation spaces, thus rendering it unfeasible…
When a robot autonomously performs a complex task, it frequently must balance competing objectives while maintaining safety. This becomes more difficult in uncertain environments with stochastic outcomes. Enhancing transparency in the…
We consider the problem of sequentially making decisions that are rewarded by "successes" and "failures" which can be predicted through an unknown relationship that depends on a partially controllable vector of attributes for each instance.…
We present a model of a forecaster who must predict the future value of a variable that depends on an exogenous state and on the intervention of a policy-maker. We investigate the incentives of the forecaster to acquire costly private…
Inferring from inconsistency and making decisions are two problems which have always been treated separately by researchers in Artificial Intelligence. Consequently, different models have been proposed for each category. Different…
Many organizations depend on human decision-makers to make subjective decisions, especially in settings where information is scarce. Although workers are often viewed as interchangeable, the specific individual assigned to a task can…
When users stand to gain from certain predictions, they are prone to act strategically to obtain favorable predictive outcomes. Whereas most works on strategic classification consider user actions that manifest as feature modifications, we…
The quality of consequences in a decision making problem under (severe) uncertainty must often be compared among different targets (goals, objectives) simultaneously. In addition, the evaluations of a consequence's performance under the…
In the 1980s a new, extraordinarily productive way of reasoning about algorithms emerged. In this paper, we introduce the term "outcome reasoning" to refer to this form of reasoning. Though outcome reasoning has come to dominate areas of…
Should prediction models always deliver a prediction? In the pursuit of maximum predictive performance, critical considerations of reliability and fairness are often overshadowed, particularly when it comes to the role of uncertainty.…
When attempting to recover functions from observational data, one naturally seeks to do so in an optimal manner with respect to some modeling assumption. With a focus put on the worst-case setting, this is the standard goal of Optimal…
Algorithms are used to aid human decision makers by making predictions and recommending decisions. Currently, these algorithms are trained to optimize prediction accuracy. What if they were optimized to control final decisions? In this…