We initiate the study of strategic behavior in screening processes with multiple classifiers. We focus on two contrasting settings: a conjunctive setting in which an individual must satisfy all classifiers simultaneously, and a sequential setting in which an individual to succeed must satisfy classifiers one at a time. In other words, we introduce the combination of strategic classification with screening processes. We show that sequential screening pipelines exhibit new and surprising behavior where individuals can exploit the sequential ordering of the tests to zig-zag between classifiers without having to simultaneously satisfy all of them. We demonstrate an individual can obtain a positive outcome using a limited manipulation budget even when far from the intersection of the positive regions of every classifier. Finally, we consider a learner whose goal is to design a sequential screening process that is robust to such manipulations, and provide a construction for the learner that optimizes a natural objective.

翻译：我们启动了对多分类器筛选过程中策略行为的研究。聚焦于两种对比场景：合取场景中个体必须同时满足所有分类器，序列场景中个体须逐步满足各分类器方能成功。换言之，我们引入了策略分类与筛选过程的结合。研究表明，序列筛选流水线展现出新颖且令人惊讶的行为——个体可利用测试的顺序性在分类器间迂回穿梭，而无需同时满足所有分类器。我们证明，即使个体远离所有分类器正域的交集，也可通过有限的操纵预算获得正向结果。最后，我们考虑以设计对这类操纵具有鲁棒性的序列筛选过程为目标的学习者，并为该学习者提供了优化自然目标的构建方案。