An Economic Approach to Regulating Algorithms
@article{Rambachan2020AnEA, title={An Economic Approach to Regulating Algorithms}, author={Ashesh Rambachan and Jon M. Kleinberg and Sendhil Mullainathan and Jens Ludwig}, journal={NBER Working Paper Series}, year={2020} }
There is growing concern about "algorithmic bias" - that predictive algorithms used in decision-making might bake in or exacerbate discrimination in society. When will these "biases" arise? What should be done about them? We argue that such questions are naturally answered using the tools of welfare economics: a social welfare function for the policymaker, a private objective function for the algorithm designer and a model of their information sets and interaction. We build such a model that…
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