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Related papers: Counterfactual Realizability

200 papers

Counterfactual analysis is intuitively performed by humans on a daily basis eg. "What should I have done differently to get the loan approved?". Such counterfactual questions also steer the formulation of scientific hypotheses. More…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-18 Juliane Weilbach , Sebastian Gerwinn , Melih Kandemir , Martin Fraenzle

To construct interpretable explanations that are consistent with the original ML model, counterfactual examples---showing how the model's output changes with small perturbations to the input---have been proposed. This paper extends the work…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-16 Divyat Mahajan , Chenhao Tan , Amit Sharma

Consider a setting with multiple units (e.g., individuals, cohorts, geographic locations) and outcomes (e.g., treatments, times, items), where the goal is to learn a multivariate distribution for each unit-outcome entry, such as the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-21 Kyuseong Choi , Jacob Feitelberg , Caleb Chin , Anish Agarwal , Raaz Dwivedi

Fairness in predictions is of direct importance in practice due to legal, ethical, and societal reasons. This is often accomplished through counterfactual fairness, which ensures that the prediction for an individual is the same as that in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-03 Yuchen Ma , Valentyn Melnychuk , Dennis Frauen , Stefan Feuerriegel

Counterfactual explanations assess unfairness by revealing how inputs must change to achieve a desired outcome. This paper introduces the first graph-based framework for generating group counterfactual explanations to audit group fairness,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Christos Fragkathoulas , Vasiliki Papanikou , Evaggelia Pitoura , Evimaria Terzi

Machine Learning systems are increasingly prevalent across healthcare, law enforcement, and finance but often operate on historical data, which may carry biases against certain demographic groups. Causal and counterfactual fairness provides…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-09 Jake Robertson , Noah Hollmann , Noor Awad , Frank Hutter

Counterfactual explanations are a common approach to providing recourse to data subjects. However, current methodology can produce counterfactuals that cannot be achieved by the subject, making the use of counterfactuals for recourse…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-04 Alexander Asemota , Giles Hooker

Despite their enormous predictive power, machine learning models are often unsuitable for applications in regulated industries such as finance, due to their limited capacity to provide explanations. While model-agnostic frameworks such as…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-11-03 Joshua S. Harvey , Guanchao Feng , Sai Anusha Meesala , Tina Zhao , Dhagash Mehta

We address the open question of counterfactual identification for high-dimensional multivariate outcomes from observational data. Pearl (2000) argues that counterfactuals must be identifiable (i.e., recoverable from the observed data…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-25 Fabio De Sousa Ribeiro , Ainkaran Santhirasekaram , Ben Glocker

Machine learning can impact people with legal or ethical consequences when it is used to automate decisions in areas such as insurance, lending, hiring, and predictive policing. In many of these scenarios, previous decisions have been made…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-03-09 Matt J. Kusner , Joshua R. Loftus , Chris Russell , Ricardo Silva

Counterfactual explanations (CEs) are methods for generating an alternative scenario that produces a different desirable outcome. For example, if a student is predicted to fail a course, then counterfactual explanations can provide the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-01-09 Bevan I. Smith

Counterfactual reasoning aims at answering contrary-to-fact questions like ``Would have Alice recovered had she taken aspirin?'' and corresponds to the most fine-grained layer of causation. Critically, while many counterfactual statements…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-09-23 Lucas de Lara

Counterfactuals operationalised through algorithmic recourse have become a powerful tool to make artificial intelligence systems explainable. Conceptually, given an individual classified as y -- the factual -- we seek actions such that…

Counterfactual estimation from observations represents a critical endeavor in numerous application fields, such as healthcare and finance, with the primary challenge being the mitigation of treatment bias. The balancing strategy aimed at…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-19 Qiang Huang , Chuizheng Meng , Defu Cao , Biwei Huang , Yi Chang , Yan Liu

Counterfactual explanations represent the minimal change to a data sample that alters its predicted classification, typically from an unfavorable initial class to a desired target class. Counterfactuals help answer questions such as "what…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-03 Brian Barr , Matthew R. Harrington , Samuel Sharpe , C. Bayan Bruss

In recent years, various machine and deep learning architectures have been successfully introduced to the field of predictive process analytics. Nevertheless, the inherent opacity of these algorithms poses a significant challenge for human…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-03-15 Alexander Stevens , Chun Ouyang , Johannes De Smedt , Catarina Moreira

The problem of individualization is recognized as crucial in almost every field. Identifying causes of effects in specific events is likewise essential for accurate decision making. However, such estimates invoke counterfactual…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-05-04 Scott Mueller , Ang Li , Judea Pearl

Counterfactuals, or modified inputs that lead to a different outcome, are an important tool for understanding the logic used by machine learning classifiers and how to change an undesirable classification. Even if a counterfactual changes a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-21 Jesse Friedbaum , Sudarshan Adiga , Ravi Tandon

Predictive models are being increasingly used to support consequential decision making at the individual level in contexts such as pretrial bail and loan approval. As a result, there is increasing social and legal pressure to provide…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-02 Amir-Hossein Karimi , Gilles Barthe , Borja Balle , Isabel Valera

Comparing counterfactual distributions can provide more nuanced and valuable measures for causal effects, going beyond typical summary statistics such as averages. In this work, we consider characterizing causal effects via distributional…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-11-05 Kwangho Kim , Jisu Kim , Edward H. Kennedy