Escaping the Impossibility of Fairness: From Formal to Substantive Algorithmic Fairness. (arXiv:2107.04642v7 [cs.CY] UPDATED)

Efforts to promote equitable public policy with algorithms appear to be
fundamentally constrained by the "impossibility of fairness" (an
incompatibility between mathematical definitions of fairness). This technical
limitation raises a central question about algorithmic fairness: How can
computer scientists and policymakers support equitable policy reforms with
algorithms? In this article, I argue that promoting justice with algorithms
requires reforming the methodology of algorithmic fairness. First, I diagnose
why the current methodology for algorithmic fairness--which I call "formal
algorithmic fairness"--leads to …

algorithmic fairness arxiv fairness