Title: Quantifying Program Bias,
Abstract: With the range and sensitivity of algorithmic decisions expanding at a
break-neck speed, it is imperative that we aggressively investigate whether
programs are biased. We propose a novel probabilistic program analysis
technique and apply it to quantifying bias in decision-making programs.
Specifically, we (i) present a sound and complete automated verification
technique for proving quantitative properties of probabilistic programs; (ii)
show that certain notions of bias, recently proposed in the fairness
literature, can be phrased as quantitative correctness properties; and (iii)
present FairSquare, the first verification tool for quantifying program bias,
and evaluate it on a range of decision-making programs.