Reasoning with trees: interpreting CNNs using hierarchies
Keywords: interpretability, image classification, hierarchical segmentation
TL;DR: The proposed framework, xAiTrees, uses hierarchical segmentation to provide faithful and interpretable multiscale explanations, surpassing traditional xAI methods in the trade-off of fidelity and interpretability.
Abstract: Challenges remain in providing interpretable explanations for neural network reasoning in explainable AI (xAI). Existing methods like Integrated Gradients produce noisy maps, and LIME, while intuitive, may deviate from the model’s reasoning. We introduce a framework that uses hierarchical segmentation techniques for faithful and interpretable explanations of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Our method constructs model-based hierarchical segmentations that maintain the model’s reasoning fidelity and allow both human-centric and model-centric segmentation. This approach can be combined with various xAI methods and provides multiscale explanations that help identify biases and improve understanding of neural network decision-making. Experiments show that our framework, xAiTrees, delivers highly interpretable and faithful model explanations, not only surpassing traditional xAI methods but shedding new light on a novel approach to enhancing xAI interpretability. Code at: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/reasoning_with_trees-F3E1.
Primary Area: interpretability and explainable AI
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Submission Number: 6882
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