Computer scientists are trained to create abstractions that simplify and generalize. However, a premature abstraction that omits crucial contextual details creates the risk of epistemic trespassing, by falsely asserting its relevance into other contexts. We study how the field of responsible AI has created an imperfect synecdoche by abstracting the four-fifths rule (a.k.a. the 4/5 rule or 80% rule), a single part of disparate impact discrimination law, into the disparate impact metric. This metric incorrectly introduces a new deontic nuance and new potentials for ethical harms that were absent in the original 4/5 rule. We also survey how the field has amplified the potential for harm in codifying the 4/5 rule into popular AI fairness software toolkits. The harmful erasure of legal nuances is a wake-up call for computer scientists to self-critically re-evaluate the abstractions they create and use, particularly in the interdisciplinary field of AI ethics.

研究了在创造通用性抽象时，过度抽象导致错误的知识领域扩展和伦理风险，并探讨了负责任的 AI 领域如何将 4/5 规则抽象为不适当的不同待遇指标，引入了新的道德含义和潜在的伦理危害，并检视了该领域如何通过将 4/5 规则编码到流行的 AI 公平性软件工具包中来放大损害的潜力。

四分之四原则不构成不平等影响：算法公正中认知侵权令人悲哀的故事