Imagine you are a medical professional and you are using AI for stroke prediction. The AI has predicted stroke for one of your patients. When you will tell this to your patient, he is going to panic. There are two obvious questions, which he will ask.

In this paper we introduce MCCE: Monte Carlo sampling of realistic Counterfactual Explanations, a model-based method that generates counterfactual explanations by producing a set of feasible examples using conditional inference trees. Unlike algorithmic-based counterfactual methods that have to solve complex optimization problems or other model based methods that model the data distribution using heavy machine learning models, MCCE is made up of only two light-weight steps (generation and post-processing). MCCE is also straightforward for the end user to understand and implement, handles any type of predictive model and type of feature, takes into account actionability constraints when generating the counterfactual explanations, and generates as many counterfactual explanations as needed. In this paper we introduce MCCE and give a comprehensive list of performance metrics that can be used to compare counterfactual explanations. We also compare MCCE with a range of state-of-the-art methods and a new baseline method on benchmark data sets. MCCE outperforms all model-based methods and most algorithmic-based methods when also taking into account validity (i.e., a correctly changed prediction) and actionability constraints. Finally, we show that MCCE has the strength of performing almost as well when given just a small subset of the training data.

Before diving deep into the heavy explainable AI (artificial intelligence) concepts let us look at Rohan's story and understand "WHAT IS EXPLAINABLE AI?" & "WHY IS IT NEEDED?" Rohan was a machine learning engineer at a leading company and was very sick and had symptoms of lung cancer. He went to his doctor and discussed the issue and with him. The concerned doctor asked him to get some tests done and said "I can only come to a conclusion after that". Rohan got his tests done and showed the reports to the doctor. The doctor was certain of the diagnosis but still wanted to know more about his condition.

Last years have been characterized by an upsurge of opaque automatic decision support systems, such as Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). Although they have great generalization and prediction skills, their functioning does not allow obtaining detailed explanations of their behaviour. As opaque machine learning models are increasingly being employed to make important predictions in critical environments, the danger is to create and use decisions that are not justifiable or legitimate. Therefore, there is a general agreement on the importance of endowing machine learning models with explainability. The reason is that EXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques can serve to verify and certify model outputs and enhance them with desirable notions such as trustworthiness, accountability, transparency and fairness. This tutorial is meant to be the go-to handbook for any audience with a computer science background aiming at getting intuitive insights of machine learning models, accompanied with straight, fast, and intuitive explanations out of the box. We believe that these methods provide a valuable contribution for applying XAI techniques in their particular day-to-day models, datasets and use-cases. Figure \ref{fig:Flowchart} acts as a flowchart/map for the reader and should help him to find the ideal method to use according to his type of data. The reader will find a description of the proposed method as well as an example of use and a Python notebook that he can easily modify as he pleases in order to apply it to his own case of application.

Every step we take in the digital world leaves behind a record of our behavior; a digital footprint. Research has suggested that algorithms can translate these digital footprints into accurate estimates of psychological characteristics, including personality traits, mental health or intelligence. The mechanisms by which AI generates these insights, however, often remain opaque. In this paper, we show how Explainable AI (XAI) can help domain experts and data subjects validate, question, and improve models that classify psychological traits from digital footprints. We elaborate on two popular XAI methods (rule extraction and counterfactual explanations) in the context of Big Five personality predictions (traits and facets) from financial transactions data (N = 6,408). First, we demonstrate how global rule extraction sheds light on the spending patterns identified by the model as most predictive for personality, and discuss how these rules can be used to explain, validate, and improve the model. Second, we implement local rule extraction to show that individuals are assigned to personality classes because of their unique financial behavior, and that there exists a positive link between the model's prediction confidence and the number of features that contributed to the prediction. Our experiments highlight the importance of both global and local XAI methods. By better understanding how predictive models work in general as well as how they derive an outcome for a particular person, XAI promotes accountability in a world in which AI impacts the lives of billions of people around the world.

This paper examines the interdisciplinary research question of how to integrate Computational Argumentation, as studied in AI, with Cognition, as can be found in Cognitive Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy. It stems from the work of the 1st Workshop on Computational Argumentation and Cognition (COGNITAR), which was organized as part of the 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), and took place virtually on September 8th, 2020. The paper begins with a brief presentation of the scientific motivation for the integration of Computational Argumentation and Cognition, arguing that within the context of Human-Centric AI the use of theory and methods from Computational Argumentation for the study of Cognition can be a promising avenue to pursue. A short summary of each of the workshop presentations is given showing the wide spectrum of problems where the synthesis of the theory and methods of Computational Argumentation with other approaches that study Cognition can be applied. The paper presents the main problems and challenges in the area that would need to be addressed, both at the scientific level but also at the epistemological level, particularly in relation to the synthesis of ideas and approaches from the various disciplines involved.

Contributed chapter to "HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP" to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing Loizos Michael Abstract: This chapter discusses AI from the prism of an automated process for the organization of data, and exemplifies the role that explainability has to play in moving from the current generation of AI systems to the next one, where the role of humans is lifted from that of data annotators working for the AI systems to that of collaborators working with the AI systems. Keywords: data organization, automation, explainability, fourth AI revolution, learning, XIXO principle, machine coaching Acknowledgements: This work was supported by funding from the EU's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreements no. Explainable automated organization of data. Although admittedly not a comprehensive definition of the wide scope of Artificial Intelligence (AI), this phrase does capture how AI has come to be ...

A judge on Wednesday denied a request by the Los Angeles police union that he block the city's COVID-19 vaccination mandate for police officers from taking effect. Having rejected the Police Protective League's petition for a temporary restraining order, California Superior Court Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff must still rule on a related request for a preliminary injunction, which would halt the mandate for officers while a lawsuit the union filed against the city over the rollout of the vaccine requirement goes forward. A court hearing on the injunction is scheduled for next month. The judge did not explain the reasoning for his decision in court records available online Thursday. Under the city's mandate, all city employees including police officers are required to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 18 unless they are granted a medical or religious exemption, and agree in the run-up to the deadline to submit to regular coronavirus testing if they are unvaccinated.

Explainable AI can help decision-makers in insurance understand the rationale and logic behind AI and machine learning results. "Most businesses believe that machine learning models are opaque and non-intuitive and no information is provided regarding their decision-making and predictions," -- Swathi Young, host at Women in AI. Explainable AI is evolving to give meaning to artificial intelligence and machine learning in insurance. The XAI (explainable AI) model has the key factors, which are explained in the passed and not passed cases. The features that are extracted from the insurance customer profile and the accident image are highlighted in the XAI model.

The past decade has seen significant progress in artificial intelligence (AI), which has resulted in algorithms being adopted for resolving a variety of problems. However, this success has been met by increasing model complexity and employing black-box AI models that lack transparency. In response to this need, Explainable AI (XAI) has been proposed to make AI more transparent and thus advance the adoption of AI in critical domains. Although there are several reviews of XAI topics in the literature that identified challenges and potential research directions in XAI, these challenges and research directions are scattered. This study, hence, presents a systematic meta-survey for challenges and future research directions in XAI organized in two themes: (1) general challenges and research directions in XAI and (2) challenges and research directions in XAI based on machine learning life cycle's phases: design, development, and deployment. We believe that our meta-survey contributes to XAI literature by providing a guide for future exploration in the XAI area.