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Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations

Numerous ethics guidelines have been handed down over the last few years on the ethical applications of machine learning models. Virtually every one of them mentions the importance of “fairness” in the development and use of these models. Unfortunately, though, these ethics documents omit providing...

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Autores principales: Banja, John, Gichoya, Judy Wawira, Martinez-Martin, Nicole, Waller, Lance A., Clifford, Gari D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10659157/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37983258
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000386
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author Banja, John
Gichoya, Judy Wawira
Martinez-Martin, Nicole
Waller, Lance A.
Clifford, Gari D.
author_facet Banja, John
Gichoya, Judy Wawira
Martinez-Martin, Nicole
Waller, Lance A.
Clifford, Gari D.
author_sort Banja, John
collection PubMed
description Numerous ethics guidelines have been handed down over the last few years on the ethical applications of machine learning models. Virtually every one of them mentions the importance of “fairness” in the development and use of these models. Unfortunately, though, these ethics documents omit providing a consensually adopted definition or characterization of fairness. As one group of authors observed, these documents treat fairness as an “afterthought” whose importance is undeniable but whose essence seems strikingly elusive. In this essay, which offers a distinctly American treatment of “fairness,” we comment on a number of fairness formulations and on qualitative or statistical methods that have been encouraged to achieve fairness. We argue that none of them, at least from an American moral perspective, provides a one-size-fits-all definition of or methodology for securing fairness that could inform or standardize fairness over the universe of use cases witnessing machine learning applications. Instead, we argue that because fairness comprehensions and applications reflect a vast range of use contexts, model developers and clinician users will need to engage in thoughtful collaborations that examine how fairness should be conceived and operationalized in the use case at issue. Part II of this paper illustrates key moments in these collaborations, especially when inter and intra disagreement occurs among model developer and clinician user groups over whether a model is fair or unfair. We conclude by noting that these collaborations will likely occur over the lifetime of a model if its claim to fairness is to advance beyond “afterthought” status.
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spelling pubmed-106591572023-11-20 Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations Banja, John Gichoya, Judy Wawira Martinez-Martin, Nicole Waller, Lance A. Clifford, Gari D. PLOS Digit Health Opinion Numerous ethics guidelines have been handed down over the last few years on the ethical applications of machine learning models. Virtually every one of them mentions the importance of “fairness” in the development and use of these models. Unfortunately, though, these ethics documents omit providing a consensually adopted definition or characterization of fairness. As one group of authors observed, these documents treat fairness as an “afterthought” whose importance is undeniable but whose essence seems strikingly elusive. In this essay, which offers a distinctly American treatment of “fairness,” we comment on a number of fairness formulations and on qualitative or statistical methods that have been encouraged to achieve fairness. We argue that none of them, at least from an American moral perspective, provides a one-size-fits-all definition of or methodology for securing fairness that could inform or standardize fairness over the universe of use cases witnessing machine learning applications. Instead, we argue that because fairness comprehensions and applications reflect a vast range of use contexts, model developers and clinician users will need to engage in thoughtful collaborations that examine how fairness should be conceived and operationalized in the use case at issue. Part II of this paper illustrates key moments in these collaborations, especially when inter and intra disagreement occurs among model developer and clinician user groups over whether a model is fair or unfair. We conclude by noting that these collaborations will likely occur over the lifetime of a model if its claim to fairness is to advance beyond “afterthought” status. Public Library of Science 2023-11-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10659157/ /pubmed/37983258 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000386 Text en © 2023 Banja et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Opinion
Banja, John
Gichoya, Judy Wawira
Martinez-Martin, Nicole
Waller, Lance A.
Clifford, Gari D.
Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
title Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
title_full Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
title_fullStr Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
title_full_unstemmed Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
title_short Fairness as an afterthought: An American perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
title_sort fairness as an afterthought: an american perspective on fairness in model developer-clinician user collaborations
topic Opinion
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10659157/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37983258
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000386
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