We Need to Talk About Self-Fulfilling Predictions

Donal Khosrowi, Markus Ahlers, Philippe van Basshuysen
Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness, PMLR 294:315-321, 2025.

Abstract

Some predictive systems do not merely predict, but their predictions shape and steer the world towards certain outcomes rather than others; they are performative. When predictive systems are performative, their development and deployment raises morally urgent challenges and places novel responsibilities on developers, deployers, regulators and policy-makers. While EWAF and other related communities have focused considerable attention on ethically significant problems regarding bias, fairness, and discrimination, little attention has been paid so far to the ethical challenges raised by performative prediction. This paper details this gap, provides a snapshot of ongoing work across computer science and philosophy to point out fruitful connections, and issues a community-wide call for action to investigate and manage performative prediction and the new challenges it raises.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v294-khosrowi25a, title = {We Need to Talk About Self-Fulfilling Predictions}, author = {Khosrowi, Donal and Ahlers, Markus and van Basshuysen, Philippe}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness}, pages = {315--321}, year = {2025}, editor = {Weerts, Hilde and Pechenizkiy, Mykola and Allhutter, Doris and Corrêa, Ana Maria and Grote, Thomas and Liem, Cynthia}, volume = {294}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {30 Jun--02 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlresearch/v294/main/assets/khosrowi25a/khosrowi25a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v294/khosrowi25a.html}, abstract = {Some predictive systems do not merely predict, but their predictions shape and steer the world towards certain outcomes rather than others; they are performative. When predictive systems are performative, their development and deployment raises morally urgent challenges and places novel responsibilities on developers, deployers, regulators and policy-makers. While EWAF and other related communities have focused considerable attention on ethically significant problems regarding bias, fairness, and discrimination, little attention has been paid so far to the ethical challenges raised by performative prediction. This paper details this gap, provides a snapshot of ongoing work across computer science and philosophy to point out fruitful connections, and issues a community-wide call for action to investigate and manage performative prediction and the new challenges it raises.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T We Need to Talk About Self-Fulfilling Predictions %A Donal Khosrowi %A Markus Ahlers %A Philippe van Basshuysen %B Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2025 %E Hilde Weerts %E Mykola Pechenizkiy %E Doris Allhutter %E Ana Maria Corrêa %E Thomas Grote %E Cynthia Liem %F pmlr-v294-khosrowi25a %I PMLR %P 315--321 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v294/khosrowi25a.html %V 294 %X Some predictive systems do not merely predict, but their predictions shape and steer the world towards certain outcomes rather than others; they are performative. When predictive systems are performative, their development and deployment raises morally urgent challenges and places novel responsibilities on developers, deployers, regulators and policy-makers. While EWAF and other related communities have focused considerable attention on ethically significant problems regarding bias, fairness, and discrimination, little attention has been paid so far to the ethical challenges raised by performative prediction. This paper details this gap, provides a snapshot of ongoing work across computer science and philosophy to point out fruitful connections, and issues a community-wide call for action to investigate and manage performative prediction and the new challenges it raises.
APA
Khosrowi, D., Ahlers, M. & van Basshuysen, P.. (2025). We Need to Talk About Self-Fulfilling Predictions. Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 294:315-321 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v294/khosrowi25a.html.

Related Material