In sequential decision-making problems involving sensitive attributes like race and gender, reinforcement learning (RL) agents must carefully consider long-term fairness while maximizing returns. Recent works have proposed many different types of fairness notions, but how unfairness arises in RL problems remains unclear. In this paper, we address this gap in the literature by investigating the sources of inequality through a causal lens. We first analyse the causal relationships governing the data generation process and decompose the effect of sensitive attributes on long-term well-being into distinct components. We then introduce a novel notion called dynamics fairness, which explicitly captures the inequality stemming from environmental dynamics, distinguishing it from those induced by decision-making or inherited from the past. This notion requires evaluating the expected changes in the next state and the reward induced by changing the value of the sensitive attribute while holding everything else constant. To quantitatively evaluate this counterfactual concept, we derive identification formulas that allow us to obtain reliable estimations from data. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques in explaining, detecting, and reducing inequality in reinforcement learning. We publicly release code at https://github.com/familyld/InsightFair.

The burgeoning influence of Large Language Models (LLMs) in shaping public discourse and decision-making underscores the imperative to address inherent biases within these AI systems. In the wake of AI's expansive integration across sectors, addressing racial bias in LLMs has never been more critical. This paper introduces a novel framework called Comprehensive Bias Neutralization Framework (CBNF) which embodies an innovative approach to quantifying and mitigating biases within LLMs. Our framework builds on the Large Language Model Bias Index (LLMBI) [Oketunji, A., Anas, M., Saina, D., (2023)] and Bias removaL with No Demographics (BLIND) [Orgad, H., Belinkov, Y. (2023)] methodologies to create a new metric called Bias Intelligence Quotient (BiQ) which detects, measures, and mitigates racial bias in LLMs without reliance on demographic annotations. By introducing a new metric called BiQ that enhances LLMBI with additional fairness metrics, CBNF offers a multi-dimensional metric for bias assessment, underscoring the necessity of a nuanced approach to fairness in AI [Mehrabi et al., 2021]. This paper presents a detailed analysis of Latimer AI (a language model incrementally trained on black history and culture) in comparison to ChatGPT 3.5, illustrating Latimer AI's efficacy in detecting racial, cultural, and gender biases through targeted training and refined bias mitigation strategies [Latimer & Bender, 2023]. Through empirical studies, our approach not only demonstrates the feasibility of detecting and measuring racial bias but also offers a scalable solution adaptable to various AI applications, underscoring our commitment to fostering more equitable and reliable AI technologies. Our method focuses on providing a comprehensive framework for the detection, quantification, and mitigation of racial biases in monolingual LLMs, with a special emphasis on Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) based models [Lewis, Perez et.al.

Federated learning ensures the privacy of clients by conducting distributed training on individual client devices and sharing only the model weights with a central server. However, in real-world scenarios, the heterogeneity of data among clients necessitates appropriate personalization methods. In this paper, we aim to address this heterogeneity using a form of parameter decoupling known as representation learning. Representation learning divides deep learning models into 'base' and 'head' components. The base component, capturing common features across all clients, is shared with the server, while the head component, capturing unique features specific to individual clients, remains local. We propose a new representation learning-based approach that suggests decoupling the entire deep learning model into more densely divided parts with the application of suitable scheduling methods, which can benefit not only data heterogeneity but also class heterogeneity. In this paper, we compare and analyze two layer scheduling approaches, namely forward (\textit{Vanilla}) and backward (\textit{Anti}), in the context of data and class heterogeneity among clients. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm, when compared to existing personalized federated learning algorithms, achieves increased accuracy, especially under challenging conditions, while reducing computation costs.

Dr. Leonard Sax joined'Fox & Friends' to discuss how wealthy families are using fake medical diagnoses to their advantage when it comes to college entrance exams. A Maryland high school athletic director was arrested after he allegedly used artificial intelligence (AI) to create racist and antisemitic audio in the voice of his boss, officials said Thursday. Dazhon Darien, 31, an athletic director at Pikesville High School, allegedly made the recording to retaliate against his boss, Pikesville Principal Eric Eiswert, who was pursuing an investigation into Darien's potential mishandling of school funds, authorities said. At a press conference on Thursday, Robert McCullough, chief of Baltimore County police, said that officials were first made aware of the voice recording on Jan. 17, and thoroughly investigated the allegations before sharing the information with the public. "On January 17, 2024, the Baltimore County Police Department became aware of a voice recording being circulated on social media," McCullough said.

Event reasoning is a fundamental ability that underlies many applications. It requires event schema knowledge to perform global reasoning and needs to deal with the diversity of the inter-event relations and the reasoning paradigms. How well LLMs accomplish event reasoning on various relations and reasoning paradigms remains unknown. To mitigate this disparity, we comprehensively evaluate the abilities of event reasoning of LLMs. We introduce a novel benchmark EV2 for EValuation of EVent reasoning. EV2 consists of two levels of evaluation of schema and instance and is comprehensive in relations and reasoning paradigms. We conduct extensive experiments on EV2. We find that LLMs have abilities to accomplish event reasoning but their performances are far from satisfactory. We also notice the imbalance of event reasoning abilities in LLMs. Besides, LLMs have event schema knowledge, however, they're not aligned with humans on how to utilize the knowledge. Based on these findings, we introduce two methods to guide the LLMs to utilize the event schema knowledge. Both methods achieve improvements.

Recent advancements in machine learning and deep learning have brought algorithmic fairness into sharp focus, illuminating concerns over discriminatory decision making that negatively impacts certain individuals or groups. These concerns have manifested in legal, ethical, and societal challenges, including the erosion of trust in intelligent systems. In response, this survey delves into the existing literature on algorithmic fairness, specifically highlighting its multifaceted social consequences. We introduce a novel taxonomy based on 'tolerance', a term we define as the degree to which variations in fairness outcomes are acceptable, providing a structured approach to understanding the subtleties of fairness within algorithmic decisions. Our systematic review covers diverse industries, revealing critical insights into the balance between algorithmic decision making and social equity. By synthesizing these insights, we outline a series of emerging challenges and propose strategic directions for future research and policy making, with the goal of advancing the field towards more equitable algorithmic systems.

This research explores the application of Large Language Models (LLMs) for automating the extraction of requirement-related legal content in the food safety domain and checking legal compliance of regulatory artifacts. With Industry 4.0 revolutionizing the food industry and with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) reshaping privacy policies and data processing agreements, there is a growing gap between regulatory analysis and recent technological advancements. This study aims to bridge this gap by leveraging LLMs, namely BERT and GPT models, to accurately classify legal provisions and automate compliance checks. Our findings demonstrate promising results, indicating LLMs' significant potential to enhance legal compliance and regulatory analysis efficiency, notably by reducing manual workload and improving accuracy within reasonable time and financial constraints.

There is growing recognition among financial institutions, financial regulators and policy makers of the importance of addressing nature-related risks and opportunities. Evaluating and assessing nature-related risks for financial institutions is challenging due to the large volume of heterogeneous data available on nature and the complexity of investment value chains and the various components' relationship to nature. The dual problem of scaling data analytics and analysing complex systems can be addressed using Artificial Intelligence (AI). We address issues such as plugging existing data gaps with discovered data, data estimation under uncertainty, time series analysis and (near) real-time updates. This report presents potential AI solutions for models of two distinct use cases, the Brazil Beef Supply Use Case and the Water Utility Use Case. Our two use cases cover a broad perspective within sustainable finance. The Brazilian cattle farming use case is an example of greening finance - integrating nature-related considerations into mainstream financial decision-making to transition investments away from sectors with poor historical track records and unsustainable operations. The deployment of nature-based solutions in the UK water utility use case is an example of financing green - driving investment to nature-positive outcomes. The two use cases also cover different sectors, geographies, financial assets and AI modelling techniques, providing an overview on how AI could be applied to different challenges relating to nature's integration into finance. This report is primarily aimed at financial institutions but is also of interest to ESG data providers, TNFD, systems modellers, and, of course, AI practitioners.

In cancer research, overall survival and progression free survival are often analyzed with the Cox model. To estimate accurately the parameters in the model, sufficient data and, more importantly, sufficient events need to be observed. In practice, this is often a problem. Merging data sets from different medical centers may help, but this is not always possible due to strict privacy legislation and logistic difficulties. Recently, the Bayesian Federated Inference (BFI) strategy for generalized linear models was proposed. With this strategy the statistical analyses are performed in the local centers where the data were collected (or stored) and only the inference results are combined to a single estimated model; merging data is not necessary. The BFI methodology aims to compute from the separate inference results in the local centers what would have been obtained if the analysis had been based on the merged data sets. In this paper we generalize the BFI methodology as initially developed for generalized linear models to survival models. Simulation studies and real data analyses show excellent performance; i.e., the results obtained with the BFI methodology are very similar to the results obtained by analyzing the merged data. An R package for doing the analyses is available.

Shares in Alphabet, the owner of Google and YouTube, surged after it issued its first ever dividend and revealed that profits had surged in the last quarter. Sundar Pichai, CEO, hailed the transition to artificial intelligence as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" as his company races to integrate the technology across its business. Investors cheered the firm's earnings, and news of a 70bn stock buyback. Google posted 80.5bn in revenue for the first quarter of 2024, up 15% on the same period last year, and reported 1.89 in earnings per share, up from 1.17 – surpassing analysts' expectations on both counts. Shares in Alphabet were up roughly 15% in after-hours trading.