Socially acceptable and fair AI

What does fairness mean? How is fairness perceived? How can fairness be implemented in AI?

Data-based decision-making systems are increasingly affecting people’s lives. Such systems decide whose credit loan application is approved, who is invited for a job interview and who is accepted into university. This raises the difficult question of how to design these systems, so that they are compatible with fairness and justice norms. Clearly, this is not simply a technical question - the design of such systems requires an understanding of the social context of these applications and requires us to think about philosophical questions.

Our team therefore combines expertise from the fields of philosophy, computer science and economy to tackle this question. The aim of our interdisciplinary project is the development of a methodology for the design of fair AI applications. This methodology will help guide stakeholders when considering the usage of AI in a socially responsible way, and will make it possible to train software developers in ethical topics.

Funding

As part of the National Research Programme “Digital Transformation” (NRP 77), our project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

News

Nov, 2024	Presentation “Accuracy versus Fairness Trade-offs in Algorithm-based Personnel Selection” at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), International Business Seminar Series.
Oct, 2024	Ulrich held a guest Lecture titled “Accuracy versus Fairness Trade-offs in Algorithm-based Personnel Selection” at Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, Graduate Centre for Social Science, Business, and Law (GSS).
Aug, 2024	Presentation of “Accuracy versus Fairness Trade-offs in Algorithm-based Personnel Selection” at Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago.
Aug, 2024	Presentation “Accuracy versus Fairness Trade-offs in Algorithm-based Personnel Selection” at Society for Business Ethics Conference, Chicago.
Jun, 2024	This week, Ulrich led a workshop on “Fair and Socially Acceptable AI in HR Management” at the Swiss HR Analytics Event in Olten, Switzerland.
Jun, 2024	Last week, Christoph presented our paper “Group Fairness Refocused: Assessing the Social Impact of ML Systems” at the Swiss Conference on Data Science 2024. We’re happy that we received an “Honorable Mention - Best Paper Award”.
Dec, 2023	The 3rd European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness will take place on July 1-3, 2024, in Mainz, Germany. Mattia and Alesia are the General Chairs this year and will organize the workshop alongside many other researchers from institutions all across Europe. You can learn more about the workshop on the workshop website.
Oct, 2023	Along with Alessandro Fabris, Jose M. Alvarez and Meike Zehlike, Christoph, Michele and Corinna founded the European Association for Algorithmic Fairness (EAAF). The association will ensure the continuity of the European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness (EWAF).
Sep, 2023	On Friday, September 22, Joe will present the FAccT’23 paper “Bias on Demand: A Modelling Framework That Generates Synthetic Data With Bias” at the 3rd Workshop on Bias and Fairness in AI at ECML PKDD 2023 in Torino.
Sep, 2023	We’re excited to share that in September Joe starts his internship at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen (Social Foundations of Computation Department) where he’ll be working with Celestine Mendler-Dünner and Moritz Hardt.
Sep, 2023	Corinna wrote a summary of our FAccT’22 paper “People are not coins: Morally distinct types of predictions necessitate different fairness constraints”, which is featured in the Montreal AI Ethics Institute’s research summaries.
Jun, 2023	Our paper “Fairness and Risk: An Ethical Argument for a Group Fairness Definition Insurers Can Use” has been published in Philosophy & Technology.
Jun, 2023	On Thursday, June 15, Joe will present his newest paper “Bias on Demand: A Modelling Framework That Generates Synthetic Data With Bias” at FAccT.
Jun, 2023	Thank you to the 102 researchers who joined EWAF’23. We’re grateful that so many people found their way to Winterthur and made EWAF such an enriching event. We’re looking forward to keep growing the European algorithmic fairness community with you and are already looking forward to seeing you again at EWAF’24!
Apr, 2023	We’re happy to share that the FairnessLab was among the finalists of Stanford’s AI Audit Challenge. Congratulations to the other finalists and winners of the challenge!
Mar, 2023	Joe, who was closely working with us for the past 2 years, will officially join our project in April. Welcome to the team, Joe!
Mar, 2023	Christoph will lead the workshop “Responsible AI – Transparency and Fairness of data-based applications in practice” at the Swiss Conference on Data Science (SDS) 2023. The workshop will take place in Zurich on June 22, 2023.
Feb, 2023	The course “Artificial Intelligence 2” at ZHAW just started. The first half of the course will focus on algorithmic fairness and will be led by Christoph with Corinna as the TA.
Feb, 2023	The 2nd European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness will take place on June 7-9, 2023, in Winterthur. Christoph, Michele and Corinna are part of the organizing committee along with many other researchers from institutions all across Europe. You can learn more about the workshop on the workshop website.
Oct, 2022	An update on our project team: As planned, Eleonora has left the project at the end of June. Thank you, Eleonora, for two great years and your critical philosophical contributions to our project! Joachim Steinwendner joined our project at the beginning of September and will contribute with his expertise in teaching and computer science.
Jun, 2022	Michele hosted a workshop on “Workshop on Fairness and Machine Learning in Health” at the Polytechnic University of Milan on June 10. Thanks to all those who participated!
Jun, 2022	Thanks to all 48 researchers for joining EWAF’22 and making this an event full of interesting discussions! We’re looking forward to seeing how the European algorithmic fairness community grows in the future.
Jun, 2022	The exhibition “Planet Digital” at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich has ended! More than 16.500 visitors saw the exhibition — thank you to everyone who came! We are happy to have been a part of this large multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary effort.
Jun, 2022	Joe and Christoph are organizing a workshop at the Swiss Conference on Data Science (SDS) 2022 on how to develop fairer algorithms. The workshop will take place on June 22, 2022. You can still register.
Jun, 2022	Tonight, our panel discussion about (un)fair algorithms took place at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. The debate about fairness is highly political and has to include all of society. That’s why we’re so happy that about 100 people came to discuss this important topic with us.
Mar, 2022	At EPFL’s Applied Machine Learning Days 2022, Joe and Corinna gave a workshop with ethix about how to develop fairer algorithms. About 40 people from academia and the industry, with backgrounds in tech, business and social sciences, came and brought their perspective to the workshop. You can read more about it in this article published in Le Temps (in French).
Mar, 2022	As part of the exhibition “Planet Digital”, we’re hosting a panel discussion with AlgorithmWatch Switzerland and Stiftung Mercator at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. Where: Lecture hall, Museum für Gestaltung, Ausstellungsstrasse 60, Zurich When: Thursday, June 2, 6pm - 8pm Speakers: Moritz Leuenberger, Hans Peter Gränicher (CEO of D ONE), Anna Mätzener (managing director of AlgorithmWatch Switzerland) und Christoph Heitz (professor at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences)
Mar, 2022	We’re excited to share that Joe has been selected as fellow for Carnegie Mellon’s Data Science for Social Good 2022 Summer Fellowship. Congrats, Joe!
Mar, 2022	Joe and Corinna are organizing a workshop at EPFL’s Applied Machine Learning Days 2022 on how to develop fairer algorithms. It’ll take place on Sunday, March 27, 2022.
Mar, 2022	Christoph was on the Swiss news program “10vor10” to talk about (un)fair algorithms and our exhibit at “Planet Digital”. You can watch the clip here (in German).