Equalizing Recourse across Groups

Understand

The rise in machine learning-assisted decision-making has led to concerns about the fairness of the decisions and techniques to mitigate problems of discrimination.

• If a negative decision is made about an individual (denying a loan, rejecting an application for housing, and so on) justice dictates that we be able to ask how we might change circumstances to get a favorable decision the next time.
• Moreover, the ability to change circumstances (a better education, improved credentials) should not be limited to only those with access to expensive resources.
• In other words, \emph{recourse} for negative decisions should be considered a desirable value that can be equalized across (demographically defined) groups.