This repository provides support for downloading and preprocessing datasets, building and training GNN models, and implementing algorithmic fairness interventions as described in our paper on Disparity, Inequality, and Accuracy of Graph Neural Networks for Node Classification (CIKM 2023) with Arpit Merchant and Carlos Castillo.

Our experiments were conducted on a Linux machine with 32 cores, (maximum) 100GB RAM, and a V100 GPU. We used the following packages/frameworks:

1. Python/3.7 For convenience regarding Python packages, we provide environment.yml. Create a conda environment called postprocess_gnn with conda env create -f environment.yml.
2. GCC/12.2.0, Snap/6.0 (DeepWalk). Download the source code from here and install into ./embeddings/snap.

We conduct our experiments on 4 datasets namely German, Credit, Penn94, Region-Z. To download, preprocess, and save any of these datasets to disk, specifically ./tmp, execute the following:

python load_dataset.py --dataset_name <dataset-name>

For further options, see def parse_dataset_args in parse_args.py. If you use any of these datasets in your research, please cite the original authors.

To add your own datasets, extend the CustomInMemoryDataset class in utils.py as per load_dataset.py. We use a standard stratified train-val-test split. To create your own custom split, extend BaseTransform like in TrainValTestMask.

Key Arguments:

1. Select a --dataset_name.
2. Select --locus from pretrain, intrain, and posttrain indicating where the intervention will be applied.
3. Select appropriate intervention algorithm from original, unaware, EDITS, PFR, NIFTY, and Blackbox-Pred (PostProcess).
4. Select --model_name from GCN, GraphSAGE, and GIN.
5. Select seed.
6. Select hyperparameters.
7. Select logging options.

For a complete list of available options, please refer to: python fair_train.py --help. See below for sample usage (not necessarily optimal) options. If you use any baseline interventions for your experiments, please cite the original authors.

Results are logged in a CSV file with one line per execution of fair_train.py. This will store all the hyperparameters and optional arguments used in that execution. Intermediate data and model files are also stored to disk for re-use. Appropriate recompute flags trigger a rebuild.

(a) Original GCN on the German data:

python fair_train.py --dataset_name=German --locus=pretrain --pretrain_algo=original --debias_X=0 --debias_A=0 --train_size=0.6 --model_name=GCN --epochs=2000 --hidden=128 --lr=1e-4 --weight_decay=1e-5 --seed=1 --exp_logfilename=original.csv --verbose 1

AUC-ROC: 0.6828605200945627
F1-Score: 0.8150470219435736
Parity: 0.04140786749482406
Equality: 0.01186521120075934

(b) Unaware GCN on the German data:

python fair_train.py --dataset_name=German --locus=pretrain --pretrain_algo=unaware --debias_X=1 --debias_A=0 --train_size=0.6 --model_name=GCN --epochs=2000 --hidden=128 --lr=1e-4 --weight_decay=1e-5 --seed=1 --exp_logfilename=unaware.csv --verbose 1

AUC-ROC: 0.6756501182033098
F1-Score: 0.822429906542056
Parity: 0.009661835748792313
Equality: 0.02491694352159468

(c) EDITS-X GCN on the German data:

python fair_train.py --dataset_name=German --locus=pretrain --pretrain_algo=EDITS --debias_X=1 --debias_A=0 --train_size=0.6 --model_name=GCN --epochs=1000 --hidden=128 --lr=1e-4 --weight_decay=1e-5 --seed=1 --edits_epochs=100 --exp_logfilename=edits.csv --verbose 1

AUC-ROC: 0.6892434988179669
F1-Score: 0.8063492063492064
Parity: 0.012422360248447228
Equality: 0.009017560512577072

(e) PFR-AX GCN on the German data:

python fair_train.py --dataset_name German --locus pretrain --pretrain_algo PFR --debias_X 1 --debias_A 1 --train_size 0.6 --model_name GCN --epochs 1000 --hidden=256 --lr=1e-4 --weight_decay 1e-5 --seed 1 --embed_algo DeepWalk --pfr_k 26 --pfr_quantiles 4 --pfr_nn_k 50 --pfr_t 2 --pfr_gamma 0.5 --pfr_q 0.5 --pfr_A_k 128 --pfr_A_quantiles 10 --pfr_A_nn_k 10 --pfr_A_t 2 --pfr_A_gamma 0.5 --pfr_A_q 0.5 --invert_algo Adjacency_Similarity --as_create_method soft_consistency --rounds 10 --exp_logfilename=pfr.csv --verbose 1

AUC-ROC: 0.6297872340425532
F1-Score: 0.8036253776435045
Parity: 0.03588681849551423
Equality: 0.018747033697199877

(f) NIFTY GIN on the German data:

python fair_train.py --dataset_name=German --locus=intrain --intrain_algo=NIFTY --train_size=0.6 --model_name=GCN --encoder_name=GCN --epochs=1500 --hidden=128 --lr=1e-4 --weight_decay=1e-5 --seed=1 --drop_edge_rate_1=0.001 --drop_edge_rate_2=0.001 --drop_feature_rate_1=0.01 --drop_feature_rate_2=0.01 --sim_coeff=0.1 --exp_logfilename=nifty.csv --verbose 1

AUC-ROC: 0.6747044917257683
F1-Score: 0.8065573770491803
Parity: 0.05555555555555558
Equality: 0.0170859041290935

(g) PostProcess GCN on the German data:

python fair_train.py --dataset_name=German --locus=posttrain --posttrain_algo=Blackbox-Pred --train_size=0.6 --model_name=GCN --epochs=2000 --hidden=128 --lr=1e-4 --weight_decay=1e-5 --seed=1 --flip_frac=0.2 --exp_logfilename=blackbox.csv --verbose 1

AUC-ROC: 0.6800709219858155
F1-Score: 0.8162499999999999
Parity: 0.02553485162180813
Equality: 0.025818699572852388

Update: Refactored GNN model definition into an Encoder-Classifier architecture for general use and drop-in replacements. Refactored training pipeline to reduce convolution. Logging with Hydra.