Deep neural networks (DNNs) are powerful black-box predictors that have achieved impressive performance on a wide variety of tasks. However, their accuracy comes at the cost of intelligibility: it is usually unclear how they make their decisions. This hinders their applicability to high stakes decision-making domains such as healthcare. We propose Neural Additive Models (NAMs) which combine some of the expressivity of DNNs with the inherent intelligibility of generalized additive models. NAMs learn a linear combination of neural networks that each attend to a single input feature. These networks are trained jointly and can learn arbitrarily complex relationships between their input feature and the output. Our experiments on regression and classification datasets show that NAMs are more accurate than widely used intelligible models such as logistic regression and shallow decision trees. They perform similarly to existing state-of-the-art generalized additive models in accuracy, but are more flexible because they are based on neural nets instead of boosted trees. To demonstrate this, we show how NAMs can be used for multitask learning on synthetic data and on the COMPAS recidivism data due to their composability, and demonstrate that the differentiability of NAMs allows them to train more complex interpretable models for COVID-19.

They perform similarly to existing state-of-the-art generalized additive models in accuracy, but are more flexible because they are based on neural nets instead of boosted trees.

NAMs (like all GAMs), are not causal models. Although the shape plots can be informative, and can help uncover problems with the data that might need correction before deploying the models, the plots do not tell us why the model learned what it did, or what the impact of intervention ( e.g.,

They perform similarly to existing state-of-the-art generalized additive models in accuracy, but are more flexible because they are based on neural nets instead of boosted trees.

Competing risks are crucial considerations in survival modelling, particularly in healthcare domains where patients may experience multiple distinct event types. We propose CRISP-NAM (Competing Risks Interpretable Survival Prediction with Neural Additive Models), an interpretable neural additive model for competing risks survival analysis which extends the neural additive architecture to model cause-specific hazards while preserving feature-level interpretability. Each feature contributes independently to risk estimation through dedicated neural networks, allowing for visualization of complex non-linear relationships between covariates and each competing risk. We demonstrate competitive performance on multiple datasets compared to existing approaches.

Previous works attempting to close this gap have failed to fully investigate the exponentially growing number of feature combinations which deep networks consider automatically during training. In this work, we develop a tractable selection algorithm to efficiently identify the necessary feature combinations by leveraging techniques in feature interaction detection.

Federated learning has significantly advanced distributed training of machine learning models across decentralized data sources. However, existing frameworks often lack comprehensive solutions that combine uncertainty quantification, interpretability, and robustness. To address this, we propose FedNAM+, a federated learning framework that integrates Neural Additive Models (NAMs) with a novel conformal prediction method to enable interpretable and reliable uncertainty estimation. Our method introduces a dynamic level adjustment technique that utilizes gradient-based sensitivity maps to identify key input features influencing predictions. This facilitates both interpretability and pixel-wise uncertainty estimates. Unlike traditional interpretability methods such as LIME and SHAP, which do not provide confidence intervals, FedNAM+ offers visual insights into prediction reliability. We validate our approach through experiments on CT scan, MNIST, and CIFAR datasets, demonstrating high prediction accuracy with minimal loss (e.g., only 0.1% on MNIST), along with transparent uncertainty measures. Visual analysis highlights variable uncertainty intervals, revealing low-confidence regions where model performance can be improved with additional data. Compared to Monte Carlo Dropout, FedNAM+ delivers efficient and global uncertainty estimates with reduced computational overhead, making it particularly suitable for federated learning scenarios. Overall, FedNAM+ provides a robust, interpretable, and computationally efficient framework that enhances trust and transparency in decentralized predictive modeling.

Federated learning continues to evolve but faces challenges in interpretability and explainability. To address these challenges, we introduce a novel approach that employs Neural Additive Models (NAMs) within a federated learning framework. This new Federated Neural Additive Models (FedNAMs) approach merges the advantages of NAMs, where individual networks concentrate on specific input features, with the decentralized approach of federated learning, ultimately producing interpretable analysis results. This integration enhances privacy by training on local data across multiple devices, thereby minimizing the risks associated with data centralization and improving model robustness and generalizability. FedNAMs maintain detailed, feature-specific learning, making them especially valuable in sectors such as finance and healthcare. They facilitate the training of client-specific models to integrate local updates, preserve privacy, and mitigate concerns related to centralization. Our studies on various text and image classification tasks, using datasets such as OpenFetch ML Wine, UCI Heart Disease, and Iris, show that FedNAMs deliver strong interpretability with minimal accuracy loss compared to traditional Federated Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). The research involves notable findings, including the identification of critical predictive features at both client and global levels. Volatile acidity, sulfates, and chlorides for wine quality. Chest pain type, maximum heart rate, and number of vessels for heart disease. Petal length and width for iris classification. This approach strengthens privacy and model efficiency and improves interpretability and robustness across diverse datasets. Finally, FedNAMs generate insights on causes of highly and low interpretable features.

As artificial intelligence systems increasingly operate in Real-world environments, the integration of multi-modal data sources such as vision, language, and audio presents both unprecedented opportunities and critical challenges for achieving trustworthy intelligence. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that unifies federated learning with explainable multi-modal reasoning to ensure trustworthiness in decentralized, dynamic settings. Our approach, called FedMM-X (Federated Multi-Modal Explainable Intelligence), leverages cross-modal consistency checks, client-level interpretability mechanisms, and dynamic trust calibration to address challenges posed by data heterogeneity, modality imbalance, and out-of-distribution generalization. Through rigorous evaluation across federated multi-modal benchmarks involving vision-language tasks, we demonstrate improved performance in both accuracy and interpretability while reducing vulnerabilities to adversarial and spurious correlations. Further, we introduce a novel trust score aggregation method to quantify global model reliability under dynamic client participation. Our findings pave the way toward developing robust, interpretable, and socially responsible AI systems in Real-world environments.