<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<p>Counterfactuals are widely used to explain ML model predictions by providing alternative scenarios for obtaining more desired predictions. They can be generated by a variety of methods that optimize various, sometimes conflicting, quality measures and produce quite different solutions. However, choosing the most appropriate explanation method and one of the generated counterfactuals is not an easy task. Instead of forcing the user to test many different explanation methods and analysing conflicting solutions, in this paper we propose to use a multi-stage ensemble approach that will select a single counterfactual based on the multiple-criteria analysis. It offers a compromise solution that scores well on several popular quality measures. This approach exploits the dominance relation and the ideal point decision aid method, which selects one counterfactual from the Pareto front. The conducted experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach generates fully actionable counterfactuals with attractive compromise values of the quality measures considered.</p>
</abstract>

Counterfactuals are widely used to explain ML model predictions by providing alternative scenarios for obtaining more desired predictions. They can be generated by a variety of methods that optimize various, sometimes conflicting, quality measures and produce quite different solutions. However, choosing the most appropriate explanation method and one of the generated counterfactuals is not an easy task. Instead of forcing the user to test many different explanation methods and analysing conflicting solutions, in this paper we propose to use a multi-stage ensemble approach that will select a single counterfactual based on the multiple-criteria analysis. It offers a compromise solution that scores well on several popular quality measures. This approach exploits the dominance relation and the ideal point decision aid method, which selects one counterfactual from the Pareto front. The conducted experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach generates fully actionable counterfactuals with attractive compromise values of the quality measures considered.

A Multi–Criteria Approach for Selecting an Explanation from the Set of Counterfactuals Produced by an Ensemble of Explainers

International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Counterfactuals are widely used to explain ML model predictions by providing alternative scenarios for obtaining more desired predictions. They can be...

A Multi–Criteria Approach for Selecting an Explanation from the Set of Counterfactuals Produced by an Ensemble of Explainers

Published Online: Mar 26, 2024

Page range: 119 - 133

Received: Jul 06, 2023

Accepted: Dec 05, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.61822/amcs-2024-0009

Keywords
counterfactual explanations, ensemble of explainers, ideal point method, multiple criteria analysis, explainable artificial intelligence

© 2024 Ignacy Stepka et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

A Multi–Criteria Approach for Selecting an Explanation from the Set of Counterfactuals Produced by an Ensemble of Explainers

Published Online: Mar 26, 2024

Page range: 119 - 133

Received: Jul 06, 2023

Accepted: Dec 05, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.61822/amcs-2024-0009

Keywordscounterfactual explanations, ensemble of explainers, ideal point method, multiple criteria analysis, explainable artificial intelligence

© 2024 Ignacy Stepka et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
counterfactual explanations, ensemble of explainers, ideal point method, multiple criteria analysis, explainable artificial intelligence