False positives probability and Bayes Theorem formulation

59 Views Asked by At

Problem

Assume a predictive model can tell from a user's Twitter posts whether the user is a male or a female.

  • 20% of the users are females.
  • If a person is a female, the model is 90% inclined to answer correctly.
  • If a person is a male, the model is 70% inclined to answer correctly.

Assume the model describes the user being a female. What is the probability that the user is actually a male?

Attempt

Applying Bayes' Theorem, I created the tree and from this formulated the following equation.

$$ P(male | wrong) = \frac{P(male)P(wrong | male)}{P(wrong)} $$ $$ ... =\frac{P(male)P(wrong | male)}{P(male)P(wrong|male)+P(female)P(wrong|female)}$$

Plugging into this formula, I get $$ P(male | wrong) = \frac{0.8 \times 0.3}{0.8 \times 0.3+0.2 \times 0.1}=.93 \implies 93\%$$

Notes

Is my approach to this problem correct? I assume if it is, then the calculation should be too. Otherwise, any guidance on how to formulate Bayes' theorem in this case will be greatly appreciated!

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

Take $ wrong_{f} $ to be the probability that the machine is wrong in saying the individual is female (when he is a male).

$$ P(male | wrong_{f}) = \frac{P(male)P(wrong_{f} | male)}{P(wrong_{f})} $$ $$ ... =\frac{P(male)P(wrong_{f} | male)}{P(male)P(wrong_{f}|male)+P(female)P(wrong_{m}|female)}$$

Plugging in, $$ P(male | wrong_{f}) = \frac{0.8 \times 0.3}{0.8 \times 0.3+0.2 \times 0.9}=.57 \implies 57\%$$