Classify Reviewers With Bayesian Probability
You are auditing reviewers who may be lazy or careful. Each reviewer completes n gold-standard review tasks with known ground truth, and you observe k correct reviews.
Assume:
-
P(Lazy) = pi
and
P(Careful) = 1 - pi
.
-
Lazy reviewers have per-review accuracy
a_L
.
-
Careful reviewers have per-review accuracy
a_C
, where
a_C > a_L
.
-
Review outcomes are independent conditional on reviewer type.
Constraints & Assumptions
-
Use Bayes' theorem to derive the posterior probability of being lazy.
-
Propose a rule that classifies a reviewer as lazy when
P(Lazy | data) > 0.5
.
-
Derive false-positive and false-negative rates under the true model.
-
Explain how the errors change as each reviewer completes many gold tasks.
Clarifying Questions to Ask
-
Are
pi
,
a_L
, and
a_C
known, estimated, or uncertain?
-
Are the gold tasks representative of real review difficulty?
-
Are the costs of false positives and false negatives equal?
-
Is
n
the same for every reviewer?
What a Strong Answer Covers
-
Model
K | Lazy ~ Binomial(n, a_L)
and
K | Careful ~ Binomial(n, a_C)
.
-
Posterior odds equal prior odds times the likelihood ratio.
-
Classify as lazy when posterior odds exceed 1, equivalently when a log-likelihood-ratio threshold is crossed.
-
Because
a_C > a_L
, low
k
values are more evidence of being lazy.
-
False positive rate:
P(classify Lazy | Careful)
, computed over the binomial distribution under
a_C
.
-
False negative rate:
P(classify Careful | Lazy)
, computed over the binomial distribution under
a_L
.
-
With large
n
, the two binomial distributions separate, so both Type I and Type II errors usually shrink if assumptions are correct.
-
Practical caveats around task difficulty, correlated errors, estimated parameters, calibration, and unequal costs.
Follow-up Questions
-
How would you change the rule if false positives are much more costly?
-
What if reviewer accuracies vary continuously rather than having two types?
-
How would you estimate
a_L
and
a_C
from data?