AI Governance Engineer
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Proxy label

By Updated

A training target that stands in for the construct a decision is meant to capture, such as health-care cost standing in for health need 1. When the proxy is shaped by unequal treatment, a model can be accurate on the proxy and biased on the construct.

Developed in
Case: a health risk score with a proxy label
Chapters
ch. 16, Fairness & XAI
Contrast with
Proxy variable
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

The term is not used under this name in running prose; the sections listed under "Developed in" treat it.

Sources

  1. [1] "Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations" (Obermeyer, Powers, Vogeli and Mullainathan; Science 366(6464):447-453; cost as a proxy for need). Science. 2019-10-25. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax2342 (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Proxy label. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/proxy-label. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026proxylabel,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Proxy label}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/proxy-label}
}