Skip to content

When majority rules, minority loses: bias amplification of gradient descent

May 2025 · Neural Information Processing Systems · Vol abs/2505.13122 · 3 citations · 62 references
Computer Science Mathematics

TL;DR

A formal framework for majority-minority learning tasks is developed, showing how standard training can favor majority groups and produce stereotypical predictors that neglect minority-specific features.

Abstract

Despite growing empirical evidence of bias amplification in machine learning, its theoretical foundations remain poorly understood. We develop a formal framework for majority-minority learning tasks, showing how standard training can favor majority groups and produce stereotypical predictors that neglect minority-specific features. Assuming population and variance imbalance, our analysis reveals three key findings: (i) the close proximity between ``full-data''and stereotypical predictors, (ii) the dominance of a region where training the entire model tends to merely learn the majority traits, and (iii) a lower bound on the additional training required. Our results are illustrated through experiments in deep learning for tabular and image classification tasks.

View source

Similar papers

#machine learning Review Open access Oct 2014

Software development in startup companies: A systematic mapping study

The results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context.

Nicolò Paternoster, Carmine Giardino, M. Unterkalmsteiner et al. · 394 citations · ⚡54

Diffusion models as plug-and-play priors

The possibility of inferring high-dimensional data inference in a model that consists of a prior and an auxiliary differentiable constraint given some additional information is considered, thereby allowing a range of potential applications in adapting models to new domains and tasks.

Alexandros Graikos, Esmeralda S. Whitammer, N. Jojic et al. · 316 citations · ⚡15

Trajectory Balance: Improved Credit Assignment in GFlowNets

It is proved that any global minimizer of the trajectory balance objective can define a policy that samples exactly from the target distribution, and empirically demonstrate the benefits of the trajectories balance objective for GFlowNet convergence, diversity of generated samples, and robustness to long action sequenc...

Esmeralda S. Whitammer, Moksh Jain, Emmanuel Bengio et al. · 302 citations · ⚡60
#artificial intelligence Open access May 2023

Evaluating the Performance of Large Language Models on GAOKAO Benchmark

GAOKAO-Bench is introduced, an intuitive benchmark that employs questions from the Chinese GAOKAO examination as test samples, including both subjective and objective questions that contribute a robust evaluation benchmark for future large language models and offers valuable insights into the advantages and limitations...

Xiaotian Zhang, Chun-yan Li, Yi Zong et al. · 216 citations · ⚡17

KTO: Model Alignment as Prospect Theoretic Optimization

This work proposes a HALO that directly maximizes the utility of generations instead of maximizing the log-likelihood of preferences, and suggests that the best loss depends on the inductive biases most appropriate for a given setting, an oft-overlooked consideration.

Kawin Ethayarajh, Winnie Xu, Niklas Muennighoff et al. · 195 citations · ⚡28
#machine learning Review Open access Jun 2014

Why Early-Stage Software Startups Fail: A Behavioral Framework

This state-of-practice investigation was performed using a literature review followed by a multiple-case study approach and presents how inconsistency between managerial strategies and execution can lead to failure by means of a behavioral framework.

Carmine Giardino, Xiaofeng Wang, P. Abrahamsson · 175 citations · ⚡19

Related blog posts

MIT News · Artificial Intelligence Sep 29, 2026

Who we become when we talk to machines

Professor Sherry Turkle’s new book, “Artificial Intimacy,” offers a withering critique of chatbots and the antisocial dynamics she believes they encourage.

We use cookies to run the site and, with your consent, for analytics and to show ads. See our Cookie Policy.