Many dynamic processes, including common scenarios in robotic control and reinforcement learning (RL), involve a set of interacting subprocesses. Though the subprocesses are not independent, their interactions are often sparse, and the dynamics at any given time step can often be decomposed into locally independent causal mechanisms. Such local causal structures can be leveraged to improve the sample efficiency of sequence prediction and off-policy reinforcement learning. We formalize this by introducing local causal models (LCMs), which are induced from a global causal model by conditioning on a subset of the state space. We propose an approach to inferring these structures given an object-oriented state representation, as well as a novel algorithm for model-free Counterfactual Data Augmentation (CoDA). CoDA uses local structures and an experience replay to generate counterfactual experiences that are causally valid in the global model. We find that CoDA significantly improves the performance of RL agents in locally factored tasks, including the batch-constrained and goal-conditioned settings.

With the starting point that implicit human biases are reflected in the statistical regularities of language, it is possible to measure biases in static word embeddings. With recent advances in natural language processing, state-of-the-art neural language models generate dynamic word embeddings dependent on the context in which the word appears. Current methods of measuring social and intersectional biases in these contextualized word embeddings rely on the effect magnitudes of bias in a small set of pre-defined sentence templates. We propose a new comprehensive method, Contextualized Embedding Association Test (CEAT), based on the distribution of 10,000 pooled effect magnitudes of bias in embedding variations and a random-effects model, dispensing with templates. Experiments on social and intersectional biases show that CEAT finds evidence of all tested biases and provides comprehensive information on the variability of effect magnitudes of the same bias in different contexts. Furthermore, we develop two methods, Intersectional Bias Detection (IBD) and Emergent Intersectional Bias Detection (EIBD), to automatically identify the intersectional biases and emergent intersectional biases from static word embeddings in addition to measuring them in contextualized word embeddings. We present the first algorithmic bias detection findings on how intersectional group members are associated with unique emergent biases that do not overlap with the biases of their constituent minority identities. IBD achieves an accuracy of 81.6% and 82.7%, respectively, when detecting the intersectional biases of African American females and Mexican American females. EIBD reaches an accuracy of 84.7% and 65.3%, respectively, when detecting the emergent intersectional biases unique to African American females and Mexican American females (random correct identification probability ranges from 1.0% to 25.5%).

Powered with telematics technology, insurers can now capture a wide range of data, such as distance traveled, how drivers brake, accelerate or make turns, and travel frequency each day of the week, to better decode driver's behavior. Such additional information helps insurers improve risk assessments for usage-based insurance (UBI), an increasingly popular industry innovation. In this article, we explore how to integrate telematics information to better predict claims frequency. For motor insurance during a policy year, we typically observe a large proportion of drivers with zero claims, a less proportion with exactly one claim, and far lesser with two or more claims. We introduce the use of a cost-sensitive multi-class adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) algorithm, which we call SAMME.C2, to handle such imbalances. To calibrate SAMME.C2 algorithm, we use empirical data collected from a telematics program in Canada and we find improved assessment of driving behavior with telematics relative to traditional risk variables. We demonstrate our algorithm can outperform other models that can handle class imbalances: SAMME, SAMME with SMOTE, RUSBoost, and SMOTEBoost. The sampled data on telematics were observations during 2013-2016 for which 50,301 are used for training and another 21,574 for testing. Broadly speaking, the additional information derived from vehicle telematics helps refine risk classification of drivers of UBI.

The problem of inferring the direct causal parents of a response variable among a large set of explanatory variables is of high practical importance in many disciplines. Recent work in the field of causal discovery exploits invariance properties of models across different experimental conditions for detecting direct causal links. However, these approaches generally do not scale well with the number of explanatory variables, are difficult to extend to nonlinear relationships, and require data across different experiments. Inspired by {\em Debiased} machine learning methods, we study a one-vs.-the-rest feature selection approach to discover the direct causal parent of the response. We propose an algorithm that works for purely observational data, while also offering theoretical guarantees, including the case of partially nonlinear relationships. Requiring only one estimation for each variable, we can apply our approach even to large graphs, demonstrating significant improvements compared to established approaches.

We apply the algorithm Neuroevolution learning literature [5, 6]. of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) which has not been widely In this paper, we describe development and application of a applied generally in the credit evaluation domain. In addition to technique for learning online (or frequently updated) credit scoring comparing the methodology with other widely applied machine models as new data is read record by record. We describe the learning techniques, we develop and evaluate several approach developed as Online NEAT for Credit Scoring. The enhancements to the algorithm which make it suitable for the approach applies neuro-evolution, a technique that combines neural particular aspects of online learning that are relevant in the networks with evolutionary computation [7].

Machine learning has proved invaluable for a range of different tasks, yet it also proved vulnerable to evasion attacks, i.e., maliciously crafted perturbations of input data designed to force mispredictions. In this paper we propose a novel technique to verify the security of decision tree models against evasion attacks with respect to an expressive threat model, where the attacker can be represented by an arbitrary imperative program. Our approach exploits the interpretability property of decision trees to transform them into imperative programs, which are amenable for traditional program analysis techniques. By leveraging the abstract interpretation framework, we are able to soundly verify the security guarantees of decision tree models trained over publicly available datasets. Our experiments show that our technique is both precise and efficient, yielding only a minimal number of false positives and scaling up to cases which are intractable for a competitor approach.

The cost of acquiring new customers is high, so companies are spending more on customer loyalty and retention. Identifying the total value generated by a customer in the entire customer life cycle would help companies in business campaigns and in other activities. So naturally Customer Relationship Management (CRM) becomes a key element of modern marketing strategies. If we can predict a score that allows us to project, on a given population, quantifiable information then it can be used by the information system (IS) to personalize the customer relationship. KDD (Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining) Cup 2009 challenge consists of three tasks, predicting the churn, appentency and upselling, through the data provided by the telecom company Orange.

Would you let a machine learning model that has a failure rate of 98% and a false positive rate of 81% into production? Well, these claimed performance figures are from a facial recognition system that is in use by the policing force in South Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom. Dave Gershgorn article starts with a description akin to the setting of a dystopian future where an overseeing governing system monitors everyone; which is hysterically a foreshadowing of a foreseeable future. South Wales Police have been using facial recognition systems since 2017 and have done this in no secrecy from the public. They've made arrests as a result of the facial recognition system.

Predicting the behavior of surrounding traffic participants is crucial for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. Most researchers however do not consider contextual knowledge when predicting vehicle motion. Extending former studies, we investigate how predictions are affected by external conditions. To do so, we categorize different kinds of contextual information and provide a carefully chosen definition as well as examples for external conditions. More precisely, we investigate how a state-of-the-art approach for lateral motion prediction is influenced by one selected external condition, namely the traffic density. Our investigations demonstrate that this kind of information is highly relevant in order to improve the performance of prediction algorithms. Therefore, this study constitutes the first step towards the integration of such information into automated vehicles. Moreover, our motion prediction approach is evaluated based on the public highD data set showing a maneuver prediction performance with areas under the ROC curve above 97% and a median lateral prediction error of only 0.18m on a prediction horizon of 5s.

In a letter to congress sent on June 8th, IBM's CEO Arvind Krishna made a bold statement regarding the company's policy toward facial recognition. "IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software," says Krishna. "IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency." The company has halted all facial recognition development and disapproves or any technology that could lead to racial profiling. The ethics of face recognition technology have been in question for years. However, there has been little to no movement in the enactment of official laws barring the technology.