Do We Really Even Need Data?
This addresses a growing issue for researchers facing data collection challenges, but it is incremental in characterizing known statistical problems.
The paper tackles the problem of statistical inference when using predicted data from pre-trained algorithms as outcome variables, identifying three sources of error and highlighting how standard tools can misrepresent associations.
As artificial intelligence and machine learning tools become more accessible, and scientists face new obstacles to data collection (e.g. rising costs, declining survey response rates), researchers increasingly use predictions from pre-trained algorithms as outcome variables. Though appealing for financial and logistical reasons, using standard tools for inference can misrepresent the association between independent variables and the outcome of interest when the true, unobserved outcome is replaced by a predicted value. In this paper, we characterize the statistical challenges inherent to this so-called ``inference with predicted data'' problem and elucidate three potential sources of error: (i) the relationship between predicted outcomes and their true, unobserved counterparts, (ii) robustness of the machine learning model to resampling or uncertainty about the training data, and (iii) appropriately propagating not just bias but also uncertainty from predictions into the ultimate inference procedure.