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Counterfactual reasoning requires predicting how alternative events, contrary to what actually happened, might have resulted in different outcomes. Despite being considered a necessary component of AI-complete systems, few resources have…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2019-09-13 Lianhui Qin , Antoine Bosselut , Ari Holtzman , Chandra Bhagavatula , Elizabeth Clark , Yejin Choi

Counterfactuals are a concept inherited from the field of logic and in general attain to the existence of causal relations between sentences or events. In particular, this concept has been introduced also in the context of interpretability…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-01-23 Pierluigi Francesco De Paola , Jared Miller , Alessandro Borri , Alessia Paglialonga , Fabrizio Dabbene

Counterfactual explanations are an increasingly popular form of post hoc explanation due to their (i) applicability across problem domains, (ii) proposed legal compliance (e.g., with GDPR), and (iii) reliance on the contrastive nature of…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-03-17 Greta Warren , Mark T. Keane , Christophe Gueret , Eoin Delaney

Galles and Pearl claimed that "for recursive models, the causal model framework does not add any restrictions to counterfactuals, beyond those imposed by Lewis's [possible-worlds] framework." This claim is examined carefully, with the goal…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-08-20 Joseph Y. Halpern

In many applications, it is important to be able to explain the decisions of machine learning systems. An increasingly popular approach has been to seek to provide \emph{counterfactual instance explanations}. These specify close possible…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-09-22 Adam White , Artur d'Avila Garcez

Counterfactual (CF) explanations have been employed as one of the modes of explainability in explainable AI-both to increase the transparency of AI systems and to provide recourse. Cognitive science and psychology, however, have pointed out…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-12-14 Marko Tesic , Ulrike Hahn

This paper presents a model of contrastive explanation using structural casual models. The topic of causal explanation in artificial intelligence has gathered interest in recent years as researchers and practitioners aim to increase trust…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-06-22 Tim Miller

We introduce a formalism for the evaluation of counterfactual queries in the framework of quantum causal models, generalising Pearl's semantics for counterfactuals in classical causal models, thus completing the last rung in the quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-09-18 Ardra Kooderi Suresh , Markus Frembs , Eric G. Cavalcanti

I develop a novel semantics for probabilities of counterfactuals that generalizes the standard Pearlian semantics: it applies to probabilistic causal models that cannot be extended into realistic structural causal models and are therefore…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Sander Beckers

Causal Modeling Semantics (CMS, e.g., Galles and Pearl 1998; Pearl 2000; Halpern 2000) is a powerful framework for evaluating counterfactuals whose antecedent is a conjunction of atomic formulas. We extend CMS to an evaluation of the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2023-05-01 Giuliano Rosella , Jan Sprenger

Algorithmic recourse aims to provide actionable recommendations to individuals to obtain a more favourable outcome from an automated decision-making system. As it involves reasoning about interventions performed in the physical world,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-06-23 Julius von Kügelgen , Nikita Agarwal , Jakob Zeitler , Afsaneh Mastouri , Bernhard Schölkopf

Counterfactual reasoning allows us to explore hypothetical scenarios in order to explain the impacts of our decisions. However, addressing such inquires is impossible without establishing the appropriate mathematical framework. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-25 Kurt Butler , Marija Iloska , Petar M. Djuric

Causal questions often permeate in our day-to-day activities. With causal reasoning and counterfactual intuition, privacy threats can not only be alleviated but also prevented. In this paper, we discuss what is causal and counterfactual…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-07-21 Rakshit Naidu , Navid Kagalwalla

The capability of imagining internally with a mental model of the world is vitally important for human cognition. If a machine intelligent agent can learn a world model to create a "dream" environment, it can then internally ask what-if…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-29 Minne Li , Mengyue Yang , Furui Liu , Xu Chen , Zhitang Chen , Jun Wang

One well motivated explanation method for classifiers leverages counterfactuals which are hypothetical events identical to real observations in all aspects except for one feature. Constructing such counterfactual poses specific challenges…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-12 Pirmin Lemberger , Antoine Saillenfest

Work in Counterfactual Explanations tends to focus on the principle of "the closest possible world" that identifies small changes leading to the desired outcome. In this paper we argue that while this approach might initially seem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-25 Rafael Poyiadzi , Kacper Sokol , Raul Santos-Rodriguez , Tijl De Bie , Peter Flach

Methods to find counterfactual explanations have predominantly focused on one step decision making processes. In this work, we initiate the development of methods to find counterfactual explanations for decision making processes in which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-28 Stratis Tsirtsis , Abir De , Manuel Gomez-Rodriguez

Counterfactual explanations provide ways of achieving a favorable model outcome with minimum input perturbation. However, counterfactual explanations can also be leveraged to reconstruct the model by strategically training a surrogate model…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-13 Pasan Dissanayake , Sanghamitra Dutta

Machine-learning models are increasingly driving decisions in high-stakes settings, such as finance, law, and hiring, thus, highlighting the need for transparency. However, the key challenge is to balance transparency -- clarifying `why' a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-29 Sopam Dasgupta , Sadaf MD Halim , Joaquín Arias , Elmer Salazar , Gopal Gupta

Counterfactual explanations are a prominent example of post-hoc interpretability methods in the explainable Artificial Intelligence research domain. They provide individuals with alternative scenarios and a set of recommendations to achieve…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-01-20 Andrea Ferrario , Michele Loi