---
_id: '14106'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "We show that deep networks trained to satisfy demographic parity often do
    so\r\nthrough a form of race or gender awareness, and that the more we force a
    network\r\nto be fair, the more accurately we can recover race or gender from
    the internal state\r\nof the network. Based on this observation, we investigate
    an alternative fairness\r\napproach: we add a second classification head to the
    network to explicitly predict\r\nthe protected attribute (such as race or gender)
    alongside the original task. After\r\ntraining the two-headed network, we enforce
    demographic parity by merging the\r\ntwo heads, creating a network with the same
    architecture as the original network.\r\nWe establish a close relationship between
    existing approaches and our approach\r\nby showing (1) that the decisions of a
    fair classifier are well-approximated by our\r\napproach, and (2) that an unfair
    and optimally accurate classifier can be recovered\r\nfrom a fair classifier and
    our second head predicting the protected attribute. We use\r\nour explicit formulation
    to argue that the existing fairness approaches, just as ours,\r\ndemonstrate disparate
    treatment and that they are likely to be unlawful in a wide\r\nrange of scenarios
    under US law."
alternative_title:
- Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
article_processing_charge: No
arxiv: 1
author:
- first_name: Michael
  full_name: Lohaus, Michael
  last_name: Lohaus
- first_name: Matthäus
  full_name: Kleindessner, Matthäus
  last_name: Kleindessner
- first_name: Krishnaram
  full_name: Kenthapadi, Krishnaram
  last_name: Kenthapadi
- first_name: Francesco
  full_name: Locatello, Francesco
  id: 26cfd52f-2483-11ee-8040-88983bcc06d4
  last_name: Locatello
  orcid: 0000-0002-4850-0683
- first_name: Chris
  full_name: Russell, Chris
  last_name: Russell
citation:
  ama: 'Lohaus M, Kleindessner M, Kenthapadi K, Locatello F, Russell C. Are two heads
    the same as one? Identifying disparate treatment in fair neural networks. In:
    <i>36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems</i>. Vol 35. Neural
    Information Processing Systems Foundation; 2022:16548-16562.'
  apa: 'Lohaus, M., Kleindessner, M., Kenthapadi, K., Locatello, F., &#38; Russell,
    C. (2022). Are two heads the same as one? Identifying disparate treatment in fair
    neural networks. In <i>36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems</i>
    (Vol. 35, pp. 16548–16562). New Orleans, LA, United States: Neural Information
    Processing Systems Foundation.'
  chicago: Lohaus, Michael, Matthäus Kleindessner, Krishnaram Kenthapadi, Francesco
    Locatello, and Chris Russell. “Are Two Heads the Same as One? Identifying Disparate
    Treatment in Fair Neural Networks.” In <i>36th Conference on Neural Information
    Processing Systems</i>, 35:16548–62. Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation,
    2022.
  ieee: M. Lohaus, M. Kleindessner, K. Kenthapadi, F. Locatello, and C. Russell, “Are
    two heads the same as one? Identifying disparate treatment in fair neural networks,”
    in <i>36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems</i>, New Orleans,
    LA, United States, 2022, vol. 35, pp. 16548–16562.
  ista: 'Lohaus M, Kleindessner M, Kenthapadi K, Locatello F, Russell C. 2022. Are
    two heads the same as one? Identifying disparate treatment in fair neural networks.
    36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. NeurIPS: Neural Information
    Processing Systems, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, vol. 35,
    16548–16562.'
  mla: Lohaus, Michael, et al. “Are Two Heads the Same as One? Identifying Disparate
    Treatment in Fair Neural Networks.” <i>36th Conference on Neural Information Processing
    Systems</i>, vol. 35, Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation, 2022,
    pp. 16548–62.
  short: M. Lohaus, M. Kleindessner, K. Kenthapadi, F. Locatello, C. Russell, in:,
    36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, Neural Information Processing
    Systems Foundation, 2022, pp. 16548–16562.
conference:
  end_date: 2022-12-09
  location: New Orleans, LA, United States
  name: 'NeurIPS: Neural Information Processing Systems'
  start_date: 2022-11-28
date_created: 2023-08-21T12:12:42Z
date_published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2024-10-14T12:27:01Z
day: '15'
department:
- _id: FrLo
extern: '1'
external_id:
  arxiv:
  - '2204.04440'
intvolume: '        35'
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.04440
month: '12'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 16548-16562
publication: 36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems
publication_identifier:
  isbn:
  - '9781713871088'
publication_status: published
publisher: Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Are two heads the same as one? Identifying disparate treatment in fair neural
  networks
type: conference
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 35
year: '2022'
...