What's the Problem, Linda? The Conjunction Fallacy as a Fairness Problem
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Abstract (arXiv)
The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is focusing on creating automated decision-making (ADM) systems that operate as close as possible to human-like intelligence. This effort has pushed AI researchers into exploring cognitive fields like psychology. The work of Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky on biased human decision-making, including the study of the conjunction fallacy, has experienced a second revival because of this. Under the conjunction fallacy a human decision-maker will go against basic probability laws and rank as more likely a conjunction over one of its parts. It has been proven overtime through a set of experiments with the Linda Problem being the most famous one. Although this interdisciplinary effort is welcomed, we fear that AI researchers ignore the driving force behind the conjunction fallacy as captured by the Linda Problem: the fact that Linda must be stereotypically described as a woman. In this paper we revisit the Linda Problem and formulate it as a fairness problem. In doing so we introduce perception as a parameter of interest through the structural causal perception framework. Using an illustrative decision-making example, we showcase the proposed conceptual framework and its potential impact for developing fair ADM systems.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 13 of its 58 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 16 May 2023.
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References · 13
- 2019Causality for Machine Learningcited by 242
- 2021Towards Causal Representation Learningcited by 207
- 2019Towards a Critical Race Methodology in Algorithmic Fairnesscited by 124
- 2020Thinking Fast and Slow in AIcited by 67
- 2020Survey on Causal-based Machine Learning Fairness Notionscited by 53
- 2021The Use and Misuse of Counterfactuals in Ethical Machine Learningcited by 52
- 2019Discrimination in the Age of Algorithmscited by 51
- 2020What's Sex Got To Do With Fair Machine Learning?cited by 37
- 2022Causal Discovery for Fairnesscited by 16
- 2020Causal Relational Learningcited by 13
- 2022Subverting machines, fluctuating identities: Re-learning human categorizationcited by 10
- 2023Counterfactual Situation Testing: Uncovering Discrimination under Fairness given the Differencecited by 8
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- 2014Arguments using ontological and causal knowledgecited by 2
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