New Website Offers Provably Fair Solutions To Everyday Problems 167
An anonymous reader writes Carnegie Mellon researchers have just launched Spliddit, a website that offers methods for helping people split rent, divide goods, and share credit. The novelty is that these methods are all "provably fair": there are mathematical proofs showing that each algorithm on the site provides rigorous fairness guarantees. For example, the method for splitting rent is guaranteed to be envy free: the assignment of rooms and division of rent is such that a housemate would never want to swap places with another housemate. All it takes is a pair of siblings to prove that there's no such thing as "provably fair," non-mathematically.
It doesn't work (Score:5, Funny)
I keep telling my dogs that the way that Spliddit divvies up the expenses is PROVABLY FAIR, but all they do is look at me blankly, cocking their heads to one side. Damn dogs. I never see a dime out of either of them.
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In addition to dogs children won't get it. If you give two children 4 crayons each, who has more? The answer is always the other does.
Re:It doesn't work (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, if you give two children identical copies of the same color crayon, one will still want what the other has.
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In addition to dogs children won't get it. If you give two children 4 crayons each, who has more? The answer is always the other does.
As usual, the bible has the answer.
First, "divide the living child in two" (1 Kings 3:25). This will give you four half-children, each with two crayons, and a blissfully quiet household.
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http://www.spliddit.org/apps/g... [spliddit.org]
I only got half of a cat!
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paws or head?
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It in fact doesn't work:
This property is guaranteed, assuming that each housemate wishes to maximize the difference between what she thinks her room is worth and how much rent she has to pay.
That's not the objective of most people -- they will value rooms differently depending on which other rooms they own.
And I suspect someone could gain an advantage by dishonestly reporting how much they value each room. Specifically, if you express a value for the rooms as almost the same as your roommate, but slightly lower for the rooms he wants the most and slightly higher for the rooms he likes the least, I suspect their mechanism for overdemanded and underdemanded rooms will give
you'll just get the room you said you wanted (Score:3)
-> Specifically, if you express a value for the rooms as almost the same as your roommate, but slightly lower for the rooms he wants the most and slightly higher for the rooms he likes the least, I suspect their mechanism for overdemanded and underdemanded rooms will give you the slightly inferior rooms at a greatly reduced price
You'll only screw yourself that way. Suppose he values the first bedroom at $600 and the second at $500, because the first bedroom is better in some way.
You suggest going lowe
sibling fairness (Score:5, Interesting)
Greece used something similar when trying to get people to honestly report the value of their antiquities. If they listed it for a price the government thought was too low, the agency could buy it for that price. I wish local governments would do something like that with home values. If they want to tax me for a house worth more than what I can get for it on the open market, then I should have the right to sell it to them at that price.
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Better yet, make property taxes reflect the property's burden on the government. What we have now is an unscrupulous diner's dilemma [wikipedia.org] situation where people who maximize their street frontage in order to give themselves more places to park pay only a tiny fraction of the incremental cost (land, maintenance, lighting, emergency response, etc.), and everyon
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What we have now is an unscrupulous diner's dilemma situation where people who maximize their street frontage in order to give themselves more places to park
It doesn't matter how much frontage you have, the street is still the same length and there are still the same number of parking spaces. In fact, the fewer the driveways, the MORE spaces to park there are. How much space you have to park depends on the area of your property, not the frontage. A dual driveway and a two car garage gives four spaces no matter how much frontage that property has.
You're confusing "public on-street parking" with "private parking". Those spaces on the street are intended for tr
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The best example of a fairness algorithm is an old one used with siblings. Tell one kid to divvy up the candy/cake/toys whatever, and let the other kid choose which half they want.
That's essentially how their web site works, except they're asking every roommate to divide up and assign a value to each space, before asking them which space they might prefer. In a way, I like their site better, because it seems to work more like a blind auction. By keeping the bids of other roommates initially secret, then they're essentially preventing them from changing their mind halfway before the process is finished. It makes the process much cleaner that way and much more haggle-free.
Re: sibling fairness (Score:2)
I'm putting a high value on the bathroom and the foyer. when I get those two rooms, I put a coin-op pay slot on the bathroom ... and sleep in the foyer.
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Except you assume that all the players are actually honest about every option and valuation and not just playing the algorithm. Imagine a well off and not so well off student decide to share an apartment which consists of two rooms, one small and one big and a common area. They can't agree how much the extra space is worth, now the poor student he doesn't want the big room. He just wants the other guy to pay this "fair" share extra so he can pay as little as possible. Now the rich student he knows the poor
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The owner of intellectual property would be taxed based on a value the owner specifies annually. The government would have the option to purchase it for that amount, perhaps with an added premium. If the property is sold, the purchaser is taxed initially based on what they paid. Licences & royalties would be limited based on the taxed value.
I was about to say maybe this would be too complicated to get right... then I remembered our tax co
Hold up now (Score:2)
Are you, in any way, implying that the government got the tax code right?
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The best example of a fairness algorithm is an old one used with siblings. Tell one kid to divvy up the candy/cake/toys whatever, and let the other kid choose which half they want.
Greece used something similar when trying to get people to honestly report the value of their antiquities. If they listed it for a price the government thought was too low, the agency could buy it for that price. I wish local governments would do something like that with home values. If they want to tax me for a house worth more than what I can get for it on the open market, then I should have the right to sell it to them at that price.
Have you been reading old Heinlein novels? That's where I first encountered both of those concepts. Number of the Beast, right?
As for letting one sibling divvy stuff up and letting the other sibling pick, that's why democracy doesn't work in practice. Because however many people are involved, you need to account for each individually, so it gets out of hand after only a few people are added to the society.
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I had heard this too, in a Probate Case. It really works well when you have things of asymmetrical value. Dividing money is easy. Figuring out the relative worth of baseball cards to a rug wasn't so much in the Probate case.
Self-assessment of property value for tax purposes (Score:1)
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And if you tell them it's worth $5 and you sell it for $500k, do they get to charge you with fraud for ripping off the other person by $499995
Not like that. If you claim the property is only worth $5, the state should have the option to purchase the property from you at your "asking" price.
Tit-for-tat.
If the state sets the 'appraisal' value, then the owner should be able to force the state to purchase at the state's appraised price.
If the owner sets the 'appraisal' value, then the state should be able to force the owner to sell at the owner's appraised price.
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Doesn't work. The state just deliberately under-assesses everything, then jacks up the millage to compensate.
Re:sibling fairness (Score:4, Informative)
the algorith is old one, I remember it from Hugo Steinhaus's math book.
It works for any number of parties and goods.
Say we have 4 brothers who have to divide the heritage: home, car and bicycle
Step 1: each brother provides his valuation, e.g.
Adam home $200,000 car $10,000 bike $100 - total value $210,100 thus his "fair part" is $52,525
Brad home $150,000 car $3,000 bike $120 - total value $153,120 thus his "fair part" is $38,280
Caleb home $180,000 car $11,000 bike $80 - total value $191,080 thus his "fair part" is $47,770
Damon home $50,000 car $3,000 bike $60 - total value $53,060 thus his "fair part" is $13,265
Step 2
whoever "bid" the highest for given good, gets it, at his own valuation.
Adam gets home (valued by him $200,000), which is $147,475 more, than his "fair part", so has to pay $147,475 to the pool
Brad gets bike (valued by him at $120), which is $38,160 less, than he believes he should get
Caleb gets cat (valued by him at $11,000) which is $36,770 less than his definition of a fair part.
Damon gets no item, which is $13,265 lower, than he had hoped to get
Step 3
Adam should pay $147,475 to the pool.
Brad gets $38,160 from the pool
Caleb gets $36,770 from the pool
Damon gets $13,265 from the pool
Now every brother got exactly what he valued as a 1/4th of total items value.
And we've still got $59,280 in pool to share. Which may: ;-)
- be split equally - each brother gets $14,820 "bonus"
- be split proportionaly - each brother gets part of that $59k split by weights of their total valuation sum (in our example - each would bet 39.04% more than he expected)
- be stolen by the court/the man splitting goods
Hugo Steinhaus also mentioned that this procedure may be altered to minimise cash flows (items go to person with lowerst valuation, but results in everyone getting less than expected) or to consider not equal shares in total goods.
Re:sibling fairness (Score:4, Insightful)
the algorith is old one, I remember it from Hugo Steinhaus's math book.
That's a really nice description. I wish this was better known. But...
The algorithm only works (in the sense of leaving the parties psychologically satisfied) if their preferences are transitive (that is, if they are not insane).
In reality, even sane people's preferences change in pseudo-non-transitive ways as possibilities become actualities. So when Caleb gets the car, Adam is going to wish he'd valued it more highly, and so on. Our inner monkey won't be happy until it gets more than everyone else.
There is also a considerable body of data showing that our ability to judge the value of stuff is very poor. Happiness research has been big on this, showing that most of what people think will make them happy is radically inferior to easily predictable things that will actually make them happy.
So while the algorithm is beautiful and general and ought to be used wherever appropriate, it is not going to satisfy people, and it will then fall out of use because no one is going to say, "I am broken" when they can say "The algorithm is broken" instead.
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still, there's nothing better ... or at least pareto-better.
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The algorithm only works (in the sense of leaving the parties psychologically satisfied) if their preferences are transitive (that is, if they are not insane).
In reality, even sane people's preferences change in pseudo-non-transitive ways as possibilities become actualities. So when Caleb gets the car, Adam is going to wish he'd valued it more highly, and so on. Our inner monkey won't be happy until it gets more than everyone else.
You could also pair people up with others who have different, but somehow compatible values. For instance, I want internet and a good way to consume it, a bedroom, and food and shelter. I'm willing to value that higher so I don't need to worry about the other stuff. So I could pair myself with someone who wants lots of the other stuff and is willing to take responsibility for it. So we're both happy.
There is also a considerable body of data showing that our ability to judge the value of stuff is very poor. Happiness research has been big on this, showing that most of what people think will make them happy is radically inferior to easily predictable things that will actually make them happy.
So while the algorithm is beautiful and general and ought to be used wherever appropriate, it is not going to satisfy people, and it will then fall out of use because no one is going to say, "I am broken" when they can say "The algorithm is broken" instead.
Good point, I've made so many tech purchases that I've regretted later, it's not even funny.
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Well, if the person paying $500k finds out about the undervaluation, they should then sue for the difference.
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If employers want to claim it costs $17,000 to provide an employee a healthcare benefit, then the employer should have to pay that amount to the employee when employees decline that benefit.
Employers are not claiming that is their cost, they are reporting what the insurance company claims would be the "retail price" of an equivalent individual policy. Employers also report the actual cost as part of their business expenses. The IRS has a set of formulae for deciding if the employee owes more tax.
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Commercialism. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the requirement to have all your roommate's email addresses is the actual point of the website.
People can work out fair regimes. They can't spam their roommates easily enough, apparently.
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That is probably where they make their money.
But the divorce settlement technique is actually pretty useful. Amazing how often people are just total SOB's and DOB's over silly things.
The real problem there, however, is the desire to screw over, get revenge/compensation for other issues.
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what's the problem here? Just use disposable email addresses. Eg a browser plugin, Donottrackme.
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It is a not-for-profit website (http://www.spliddit.org/about).
Some of the most relentless spammers I've ever been victim of have been non-profits.
it's not so hard (Score:1)
with 2 roomates I've done things this way: have one person set the prices of each room and the other person can then pick which room they want. this has worked well. the main practical complication I've had in real life is when one person makes much more money than the other person. the well off person would likely be willing to spend far more than the "fair" price in this situation for the better room. I don't think there's any clear cut solution that works in every case.
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The market tells you what is fair and what is not.
Let's say:
If I have 1 really large attic-room and 2 small bedrooms for rent, I could (locally) ask probably $350-450 per small room including utilities. For the large room even though it's 500sqft vs 150 sqft for the small bedroom, I can't ask >$600, because once you get closer to 800-1000, they may as well rent an entire house and sublet the bedrooms (although they would have to pay utilities).
The poorer person may want the bigger room because they also
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Complaining about free room and board? (Score:2)
the main practical complication I've had in real life is when one person makes much more money than the other person. the well off person would likely be willing to spend far more than the "fair" price in this situation for the better room. I don't think there's any clear cut solution that works in every case.
Suppose the rent on the two bedroom place is $1,000. The "rich" roommate over bids as you suggest and says he'll pay $800 for the room on the left. Fine, that leaves the other roommate to cover only $200 for the other room. One can hardly complain about getting half of a $1,000 apartment for $200.
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The ice cream method (Score:5, Insightful)
To divide ice cream equally between two kids, have one dish it out and the other choose. My parents did this with my brother and me, and there was never anything to fight about afterwards. You'll never see more precise measurement in your life, though.
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I tried this once. One kid divided it up unfairly and stuck his finger in the bigger portion. The other kid would rather have the smaller portion than the tainted one.
The second kid didn't get as much as was fair, but the trash can got the first kid's share...
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I did this with my little brother, and he always answered that he wanted the bigger one. I had to explain every time that he had to choose one of the bowls. Then, when he was older, he realized he could just spit on both...
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But what if there are three people?
Then you vote on who cuts, and you can't vote for yourself. You clearly have never had a tabletop covered in dope in front of you.
Nor have I, of course, but I'm told that those who do, would do it that way.
In theory.
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That's the kind of ad-hoc solution that doesn't work, and people have actually been using math to find better ones. Go tell it to your dope fiend buddies.
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But what if there are three people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridge%E2%80%93Conway_discrete_procedure
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look in this discussion for my post on Hugo Steinhaus. There is a good algorithm for splitting number of various things between any number of people.
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--
JimFive
Toilet etiquette (Score:3)
Can we finally solve the age old question as to whether the seat should be left up or down? This is a function based on how many males vs females there are, and how often a male needs to, er, sit.
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Always down -- including the lid.
Re:Toilet etiquette (Score:5, Insightful)
it should ALWAYS be that the person sitting is in charge of making sure it is down.
Men sit down to poop, i don't hear them ever argue about who left the seat up, they just check before sitting.
common sense?
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Both the seat and the lid get closed after use every time because the cats will otherwise play or fall into the toilet. That is all.
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Would she rather he lift the seat and leave it up or pee on it when it is left down? They both need to reach a compromise--one can't unilaterally impose a toilet seat rule.
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your argument doesn't work even though it is logical
most men are rational about everything except relationships
most women are the opposite
It is impossible to discuss anything rationally with a woman because she believes that her "feelings" have a value, and that value is infinite. Therefore the only thing of importance is that she gets the result that makes her "feel" good (usually involving the man making a lot of extra effort/resource expenditure)
It doesn't "feel" good for her to have to make the effort t
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Yeah - how come nobody ever asks "Why can't women put the damned seat up after them? They are so inconsiderate."
Maybe someone could hack one of those dopey toilet seat closers?
Etiquette my back; *rules* (Score:2)
We had cats and kids at one point. Letting cats (or any other dependent) drink water from a toilet is an act of stupidity. Eventually, they're going to catch something, and it may be very nasty -- even nasty enough that you might get it.
So... I set an alarm up that would go off in the kid's bathroom (they weren't allowed in ours) if the seat was up and the bathroom door was open.
The rules were: (1) if the alarm went off, they lost 10% of their allowance. (2) If the alarm was found to be disabled in any way,
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Cool system, but...
Cat's are a million times tougher than you think.
Dogs are even more so. I've seen watched many dogs lap up shit (from a wide range of animals, carnivores and omnivores) and guzzle it down, doing so all their lives, and still remained perfectly healthy.
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That's all fine... until something gets them. Better not to count on tough immune systems and provide a clean environment instead.
I don't even let them drink out of a bowl. I use an IR sensor to drive a 12v valve, which runs a stream of water they lap out of the air from our RO system. My cats have consistently been living past 20 years. Pretty happy with that.
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Men sit down to poop, i don't hear them ever argue about who left the seat up, they just check before sitting.
Of course you don't "hear them ever argue". Who do you suppose the man might argue with, given that he would be the one who left the seat up?
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Let me spell it out for you since you can see past a fucking pebble. Men don't get bitchy when women leave the seat down.
Re:Toilet etiquette (Score:5, Interesting)
Least-agony solution (minimum number of gross incidents) is to always lower the seat after use. However, the fact that "men won't follow" this solution is merely coincidence - this solution happens to coincide with the configuration women always use so they can never be guilty of transgressing it. When I was living alone I had a dog who liked to drink out of the toilet. Consequently, I always told guests to lower the lid of the toilet after using it. My female guests always left the lid up. About half the men would lower it (probably due to being scolded about it by women all too often).
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it should ALWAYS be that the person sitting is in charge of making sure it is down.
Men sit down to poop, i don't hear them ever argue about who left the seat up, they just check before sitting.
common sense?
Hmmm. I get pissed at girlfriends when they come over and leave the seat down but the lid up. I hate staring into the gaping maw of the toilet bowl every time I need to walk into the bathroom. Furthermore, at a previous home, someone put a cabinet above the toilet. Can't tell you how many times I accidentally dropped something into the bowl from the cabinet shelf. Now the seat and the lid are second nature to me.
solved: Up proves that it was raised. Also, forcin (Score:5, Insightful)
The male wants to avoid unnecessary raising and lowering - conservation of energy.
The female wants TWO things - she wants the seat lifted before the gentleman urinates, AND she wants it lowered before she does.
If the gentleman leaves the seat up, the female (provably) got the first thing she wants - the seat was raised before he urinated. Each party ends up doing the same amount of effort - they either raise or lower the seat before using it. That's fair.
The other option, that the seat is left down, means that a) the man is expected to do 100% of the work, both raising and lowering, while the female does none. More importantly from her point of view, if the seat is down, she doesn't know whether or not it was down when he peed. She might be sitting on pee spots.
Fairness, and her own piece of mind, therefore dictate that he leave the seat up.
However, if she's clever, she can't gently force the seat to be lowered afterwards by placing a tray of soaps, potpourri, etc. on top of the toilet. The tray will prevent the seat from being raised all way to vertical and gravity will ensure it ends up down. The clever gentleman can respond to this forcing function by pointing out that it prevents her from knowing whether male guests ever raised the seat at all.
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This is why I always pee in the shower. Problem solved!
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The other option, that the seat is left down, means that a) the man is expected to do 100% of the work, both raising and lowering, while the female does none.
You're probably not serious, but just in case ...
Just sharing what little wisdom I've picked up over the years ..
no seriously, pee all over one commode (Score:2)
I wasn't serious. My actual strategy is to leave drips all over whichever restroom does not contain her makeup. She'll quickly stop using that restroom and only use "her" bathroom, the one with her makeup in it. Bonus points if her bathroom is also the guest bathroom.
Totally kidding- I want my woman to be happy when she has her pants down.
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There's also the "put things away when you're done" and "leave things the way you found it" and principles, both of which call for a closed lid.
Plus the "it's completely disgusting that my pets drink out of the toilet so please close the lid before they not only get sick but track toilet water everywhere" variant that doesn't apply to everyone, but is critical when it does apply.
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Given one man, one woman, one toilet. Women put the seat up when they're done, men put (or leave) the seat down when they're done.
The next user will likely be the opposite person, and they will have the seat set for them unless:
1 - They are a man who needs to take a shit after a woman last used the toilet. He has to put the seat down before shitting, but he then does not have to take an additional action afterward. No effort wasted here.
2 - They were the one who used it last. They have to undo and repea
Re:Toilet etiquette (Score:5, Interesting)
In a domestic (i.e., household) setting, the simple compromise is toilet LID down. This way EVERYONE has to lift something to do something. If you're a lady, you lift the lid and the seat is down. If you're man doing #1, then you lift the lid and seat together. for #2, you lift just the lid.
Then when you're done, you put the lid back down. If also keeps the bathroom more hygienic as the act of flushing creates a plume of toilet water. Keeping the lid closed keeps that plume within the toilet and not the entire bathroom.
It has the advantage that stuff doesn't accidentally fall into the toilet too.
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It has the advantage that the cat doesn't fall into the toilet, too.
FTFY
--
"Gravity just affects how distances are measured." Tell that to a skydiver's next of kin.
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>> This is a function based on how many males vs females there are, and how often a male needs to, er, sit.
No it isn't.
The logical thing to do is the minimum possible - ie leave the seat where it is when the operation is complete. When the next user comes along they may - or may not - have to adjust it.
Or are you suggesting that women reverse blindly into a bathroom and sit down?
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Can we finally solve the age old question as to whether the seat should be left up or down? This is a function based on how many males vs females there are, and how often a male needs to, er, sit.
Pee on the seat twice, then she'll start begging you to leave it up!
So... BillPin? (Score:2)
Sounds a lot like BillPin [billpin.com].
saw in a MAD magazine comic (Score:1)
The best fairness concept i have ever seen involves two people trying to split one thing evenly, the way it works is one person does the splitting and the other gets to make the first choice of which half they want. this article reminds me of this concept.
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and in rush to post my brilliant info i faled to notice the 50 other people who know this already.. yay!
I can't see anything wrong with this (Score:2)
Once you have an algorithm that is provably fair, all you need to do is prove that the algorithm itself was chosen in a provably fair manner.
By another algorithm which is provably fair. With values which were chosen in a provably fair way. And so on. And so on.
As long as that chain of logic doesn't end with "BECAUSE I SAID SO NOW SHUT UP AND PAY YOUR SHARE!" then everybody should be satisfied by how fair everything is.
Real problem is emotions (Score:5, Interesting)
Divorce is the prime example - it's rarely about the 2nd home, the dog, the china, etc.
It's about the cheating, the 'stealing the best years of my life', the drug addiction, etc.
Nine times out of ten, people are not really looking for 'fair', they want 'JUSTICE' (in quotes).
A pity, because in reality, 'JUSTICE" is another word for spending all your time and money on lawyers to punish someone else.
If their algorithms won't let you spend all your time and money on punishing your opponent, it won't actually solve all the problems of sub-dividing property.
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In my divorce, I decided I wasn't going to put up a fuss about owning things. I could replace them, and I wanted a divorce with as little fuss as possible.
It may have helped that, when my soon-to-be-ex-wife got the papers, she seemed to think I needed her to sign them, so she didn't file an objection to what I thought reasonably fair. (The lack of kids and real estate also helped a lot.)
Cake cutting (Score:2)
Cake-cutting algorithms, I love them. I've read parts of the book by Robertson and Webb and always wonder about unusual and new applications for them.
Here's a great method for splitting chores (Score:4, Interesting)
We did this back in college, and it worked great.
The real genius of the system then comes in: whoever does their chores first gets to pick which ones to do, and whoever puts it off until the end has to do whatever's left. So there's a built-in incentive to do chores early, and no squabbling, because everyone agreed to the point rankings ahead of time.
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Another neat thing about this: when somebody picks which chores to do, he or she picks the least onerous chores for the point value. That takes advantage of any differences in how unpleasant people think chores are. I'd likely wash all the dishes, for example, since I don't mind it as much as some people do. (Also, many people don't wash up to my standards, so there's another incentive that is not accounted for.)
Did it wrong... (Score:2)
"All it takes is a pair of siblings to prove that there's no such thing as "provably fair," non-mathematically."
Obviously you did it wrong, you raised your kids wrong. They should be cooperating because they are fundamentally pack, team members and because they are mathematicians. You are illogical.
Congratulations to the researchers (Score:2)
Warmup to Voting Reform (Score:2)
Leibniz (Score:1)
"The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate, without further ado, to see who is right."
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Or the (lack of) value of a room adjacent to a noisy neighbour?
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e-split? iSplit? splitX? splittodyne? splitrotron (Score:2)
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And to get the nicer room (since he is paying more).
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Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Easy, the lactose intolerant party takes the 16 cakes, trades 6 of them with cream to the other party for the 6 he has without cream and throws the remaining 5 cakes with cream in the garbage. Even if the other party doesn't trade the picker gets to eat 5 and the divider gets to eat 6, but none of them with cream.
Rigging piles always works to the advantage of the picker not the divider, that's why the system is fair.