Algorithmic explanations are intended to help stakeholders understand opaque algorithmic decisions, but in practice, they often fall short. First, the meaning of algorithmic explanations is often not what one might intuitively expect, so expert knowledge is required to interpret them correctly. Second, recent work has shown that popular explanation algorithms are uninformative about the behavior of complex decision functions. Together, these issues create a gap between what explanations appear to convey and what they actually provide. In this work, we propose Explanation Cards for Explanation Algorithms, which augment standard explanations with complementary information about robustness and validity, as well as clear instructions for interpretation. The complementary information can render otherwise uninformative explanations practically useful, while also helping to detect cases where they are not. Importantly, the interpretation instructions in explanation cards shift responsibility from users to providers: Rather than expecting users to recognize what can and cannot be concluded from an explanation, providers must make this explicit upfront. Using counterfactual explanations and SHAP as examples, we demonstrate how providers can construct explanation cards and that these cards provide users with the guidance needed for sound interpretation. We further argue that explanation cards offer a practical means of operationalising the explainability provisions of the EU AI Act. Overall, explanation cards are a significant step toward making explanation algorithms fit for real-world use cases.

翻译：算法解释旨在帮助利益相关者理解不透明的算法决策，但在实践中往往难以达到预期效果。首先，算法解释的含义通常并非人们直观预期的那样，因此需要专业知识才能正确解读。其次，近期研究表明，流行的解释算法对于复杂决策函数的行为缺乏信息量。这些问题共同造成了解释表面传达内容与实际提供内容之间的鸿沟。在本研究中，我们提出了针对解释算法的解释卡，通过在标准解释基础上补充关于鲁棒性和有效性的补充信息，以及清晰的解读说明。这些补充信息能使原本无信息价值的解释变得实用，同时也有助于识别解释无效的情况。重要的是，解释卡中的解读说明将责任从用户转移到了提供者：不再要求用户自行判断能从解释中得出什么结论、不能得出什么结论，而是要求提供者事先明确说明这一点。我们以反事实解释和SHAP为例，展示了提供者如何构建解释卡，以及这些卡如何为用户提供正确解读所需的指导。我们进一步论证，解释卡为落实欧盟《人工智能法案》中的可解释性条款提供了切实可行的手段。总体而言，解释卡是使解释算法适应现实世界用例的重要一步。