Fairness in Algorithmic Recourse Through the Lens of Substantive Equality of Opportunity

TL;DR

This paper introduces fairness notions in algorithmic recourse aligned with substantive equality of opportunity, emphasizing effort and time, and proposes interventions to mitigate disparities caused by initial circumstances.

Contribution

It proposes two fairness definitions considering effort and time in recourse, and introduces an intervention rewarding effort to improve fairness.

Findings

Effort needed to overcome initial disparities quantified.

Rewarding effort can improve fairness in recourse.

Interventions can reduce disparities in recourse outcomes.

Abstract

Algorithmic recourse -- providing recommendations to those affected negatively by the outcome of an algorithmic system on how they can take action and change that outcome -- has gained attention as a means of giving persons agency in their interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Recent work has shown that even if an AI decision-making classifier is ``fair'' (according to some reasonable criteria), recourse itself may be unfair due to differences in the initial circumstances of individuals, compounding disparities for marginalized populations and requiring them to exert more effort than others. There is a need to define more methods and metrics for evaluating fairness in recourse that span a range of normative views of the world, and specifically those that take into account time. Time is a critical element in recourse because the longer it takes an individual to act, the more the setting may change due to model or data drift. This paper seeks to close this research gap by proposing two notions of fairness in recourse that are in normative alignment with substantive equality of opportunity, and that consider time. The first considers the (often repeated) effort individuals exert per successful recourse event, and the second considers time per successful recourse event. Building upon an agent-based framework for simulating recourse, this paper demonstrates how much effort is needed to overcome disparities in initial circumstances. We then proposes an intervention to improve the fairness of recourse by rewarding effort, and compare it to existing strategies.