Algorithmic Transparency with Strategic Users
研究了在用户具有策略性行为时，企业是否应该公开其机器学习算法的决策逻辑。发现算法透明在某些条件下反而能提升企业收益和预测能力，但用户不一定受益。
Should firms that apply machine learning algorithms in their decision making make their algorithms transparent to the users they affect? Despite the growing calls for algorithmic transparency, most firms keep their algorithms opaque, citing potential gaming by users that may negatively affect the algorithm’s predictive power. In this paper, we develop an analytical model to compare firm and user surplus with and without algorithmic transparency in the presence of strategic users and present novel insights. We identify a broad set of conditions under which making the algorithm transparent actually benefits the firm. We show that, in some cases, even the predictive power of the algorithm can increase if the firm makes the algorithm transparent. By contrast, users may not always be better off under algorithmic transparency. These results hold even when the predictive power of the opaque algorithm comes largely from correlational features and the cost for users to improve them is minimal. We show that these insights are robust under several extensions of the main model. Overall, our results show that firms should not always view manipulation by users as bad. Rather, they should use algorithmic transparency as a lever to motivate users to invest in more desirable features. This paper was accepted by D. J. Wu, information systems. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4475 .