The Game of Recourse: Simulating Algorithmic Recourse over Time to Improve Its Reliability and Fairness

Algorithmic recourse, or providing recommendations to individuals who receive an unfavorable outcome from an algorithmic system on how they can take action and change that outcome, is an important tool for giving individuals agency against algorithmic decision systems. Unfortunately, research on algorithmic recourse faces a fundamental challenge: there are no publicly available datasets on algorithmic recourse. In this work, we begin to explore a solution to this challenge by creating an agent-based simulation called The Game of Recourse (an homage to Conway's Game of Life) to synthesize realistic algorithmic recourse data. We designed The Game of Recourse with a focus on reliability and fairness, two areas of critical importance in socio-technical systems. You can access the application at https://game-of-recourse.streamlit.app.