When Bits Break Recourse: Counterfactual-Faithful Quantization

Abstract

Quantization can preserve predictive accuracy under low-bit deployment while silently breaking algorithmic recourse: an actionable change that flips a decision before quantization may fail after quantization, or become substantially more costly. We formalize counterfactual sensitivity under quantization through validity, cost, and direction stability, and introduce two metrics: Validity Drop (VD) and Counterfactual Recourse Gap (CRG) that reveal recourse failures invisible to accuracy. We propose Counterfactual-Faithful Quantization (CFQ), which trains quantizer parameters and mixed-precision bit allocation to preserve counterfactual behavior by enforcing the target outcome at teacher recourse points under a global bit budget. A margin-based analysis gives a sufficient condition for recourse transfer under bounded quantization perturbations. Experiments on Adult, German Credit, and COMPAS show that accuracy-matched baselines can significantly degrade recourse stability, while CFQ maintains accuracy and substantially improves VD and CRG across bit budgets.