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Cyber-physical systems come with increasingly complex architectures and failure modes, which complicates the task of obtaining accurate system reliability models. At the same time, with the emergence of the (industrial) Internet-of-Things,…
As the discipline has evolved, research in machine learning has been focused more and more on creating more powerful neural networks, without regard for the interpretability of these networks. Such "black-box models" yield state-of-the-art…
Data-driven pricing strategies are becoming increasingly common, where customers are offered a personalized price based on features that are predictive of their valuation of a product. It is desirable for this pricing policy to be simple…
We attempt to give a unifying view of the various recent attempts to (i) improve the interpretability of tree-based models and (ii) debias the the default variable-importance measure in random Forests, Gini importance. In particular, we…
Being able to interpret, or explain, the predictions made by a machine learning model is of fundamental importance. This is especially true when there is interest in deploying data-driven models to make high-stakes decisions, e.g. in…
Model interpretation is one of the key aspects of the model evaluation process. The explanation of the relationship between model variables and outputs is relatively easy for statistical models, such as linear regressions, thanks to the…
Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms have become ubiquitous. Although they offer a wide range of benefits, their adoption in decision-critical fields is limited by their lack of interpretability, particularly with textual…
To develop general-purpose collaborative agents, humans need reliable AI systems that can (1) adapt to new domains and (2) transparently reason with uncertainty to allow for verification and correction. Black-box models demonstrate powerful…
Machine learning methods can be a valuable aid in the scientific process, but they need to face challenging settings where data come from inhomogeneous experimental conditions. Recent meta-learning methods have made significant progress in…
Random forests are decision tree ensembles that can be used to solve a variety of machine learning problems. However, as the number of trees and their individual size can be large, their decision making process is often incomprehensible. In…
In critical situations involving discrimination, gender inequality, economic damage, and even the possibility of casualties, machine learning models must be able to provide clear interpretations for their decisions. Otherwise, their obscure…
We introduce Matched Machine Learning, a framework that combines the flexibility of machine learning black boxes with the interpretability of matching, a longstanding tool in observational causal inference. Interpretability is paramount in…
As a consequence of the increasing influence of machine learning on our lives, everyone needs competencies to understand corresponding phenomena, but also to get involved in shaping our world and making informed decisions regarding the…
From self-driving vehicles and back-flipping robots to virtual assistants who book our next appointment at the hair salon or at that restaurant for dinner - machine learning systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. The main reason for…
Surrogate models play a crucial role in retrospectively interpreting complex and powerful black box machine learning models via model distillation. This paper focuses on using model-based trees as surrogate models which partition the…
Tree ensembles (TEs) find a multitude of practical applications. They represent one of the most general and accurate classes of machine learning methods. While they are typically quite concise in representation, their operation remains…
Decision trees are ubiquitous in machine learning for their ease of use and interpretability. Yet, these models are not typically employed in reinforcement learning as they cannot be updated online via stochastic gradient descent. We…
Explainable machine learning (XML) has emerged as a major challenge in artificial intelligence (AI). Although black-box models such as Deep Neural Networks and Gradient Boosting often exhibit exceptional predictive accuracy, their lack of…
Black box machine learning models are currently being used for high stakes decision-making throughout society, causing problems throughout healthcare, criminal justice, and in other domains. People have hoped that creating methods for…
Machine learning algorithms can now outperform classic economic models in predicting quantities ranging from bargaining outcomes, to choice under uncertainty, to an individual's future jobs and wages. Yet this predictive accuracy comes at a…