{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/characterizing-bias-in-classifiers-using","title":"Characterizing Bias in Classifiers using Generative Models","arxiv_id":"1906.11891","date":"2019-05-30","proceeding":"NeurIPS 2019 12","authors":["Daniel McDuff","Shuang Ma","Yale Song","Ashish Kapoor"],"abstract":"Models that are learned from real-world data are often biased because the data used to train them is biased. This can propagate systemic human biases that exist and ultimately lead to inequitable treatment of people, especially minorities. To characterize bias in learned classifiers, existing approaches rely on human oracles labeling real-world examples to identify the \"blind spots\" of the classifiers; these are ultimately limited due to the human labor required and the finite nature of existing image examples. We propose a simulation-based approach for interrogating classifiers using generative adversarial models in a systematic manner. We incorporate a progressive conditional generative model for synthesizing photo-realistic facial images and Bayesian Optimization for an efficient interrogation of independent facial image classification systems. We show how this approach can be used to efficiently characterize racial and gender biases in commercial systems.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11891v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.11891v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"characterizing-bias-in-classifiers-using","repo_url":"https://github.com/danmcduff/characterizingBias","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":0,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"tf","reach":null}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"bayesian-optimization","task_name":"Bayesian Optimization"},{"task_slug":"image-classification","task_name":"Image Classification"},{"task_slug":"image-classification","task_name":"image-classification"}],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"syntology_url":null,"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=1906.11891","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"1906.11891"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-24T18:15:14+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/danmcduff/characterizingBias","reach":null}],"summary":{"ran_honours":1},"by_repo_kind":{"official":{"samples":1,"ran":1,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":1,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"198cabdc5e02720b","entry":"distCalculation","repo":"danmcduff/characterizingBias","repo_kind":"official","path":"Sampling_Code/NeurIPS_Sampling_Code.py","file_url":"https://github.com/danmcduff/characterizingBias/blob/HEAD/Sampling_Code/NeurIPS_Sampling_Code.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran_honours","verification_level":1,"contract_check":"HONOURS","metamorphic_tier":"well_formed","behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"198cabdc5e02720b"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}