This repository contains a sample implementation of Gradient Feature Auditing (GFA) meant to be generalizable to most datasets. For more information on the repair process, see our paper on Certifying and Removing Disparate Impact. For information on the full auditing process, see our paper on Auditing Black-box Models by Obscuring Features.

To run GFA on a dataset, use the main.py file. The top few lines of that file dictate what machine-learning technique is to be used (the "model factory"), what dataset should be loaded (the "experiment"), and what the response-feature of the data-set is. You also may specify certain dataset features to ignore in the training/auditing process, as well as which "measurers" you would like to use for GFA.

Each "Experiment" should reside in the experiments directory as a separate module; each such module should have a load_data method prescribed in the __init__.py file (refer to experiments/sample/__init__.py for an example). This load_data method should return a tuple containing (in order) the headers, training set, and test set for the experiment.

All tests should be run from the main project directory. To make this process easier, a run_test_suite.sh file has been included (which can be run with bash via: bash ./run_test_suite.sh) in order to run all available tests at once.

Every python file should include test functions at the bottom that will be run when the file is run. This can be done by including the line if __name__=="__main__": test() as long as there is a function defined as test.

These tests should use print statements with True or False readouts indicating success or failure (where True should always be success). It is fine/good to have multiple of these per file.

Note: if a test requires reading data from the test_data directory, it should import the appropriate load_data file from the experiments directory.

The best way to create a model would be to use a ModelFactory and ModelVisitors. A ModelVisitor should be thought of as a wrapper that knows how to load a machine-learning model of a given type and communicate with that model file in order to output predicted values of some test dataset. A ModelFactory simply knows how to "build" a ModelVisitor based on some provided training data. Check out the "Abstract" files in the sample_experiment directory for outlines of what these two classes should do; similarly, check out the "SVM_ModelFactory" files in the sample_experiment subdirectory for examples that use WEKA to create model files and produce predictions.

1. Clone this repository to your workspace.
2. Install WEKA and/or Tensorflow (see below).
3. Update the WEKA path in model_factories/AbstractWekaModelFactory.py.
4. Install the Python dependencies listed in the requirements.txt file.
5. Install python-matplotlib if you do not already have it (sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib).
6. Run python main.py to run the sample experiment.

Many of the ModelVisitors rely on Weka. Similarly, we use TensorFlow 0.6.0 for network-based machine learning. Any Python libraries that need to be installed are included in the requirements.txt file.

• Weka 3.6.13 download
• TensorFlow 0.6.0 download

Dataset Sources:

• adult.csv link
• german_categorical.csv (Modified from link
• RicciDataMod.csv (Modified from link)
• DRP Datasets (Source and data-files coming soon.)
• Arrests/Recidivism Datasets link
• Linear Datasets ("sample_2" Experiment) link

More information on DRP can be found at the Dark Reactions Project official site.

All bug reports and feature-requests should be submitted through the Issue Tracker.