Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been one of the most trending technologies over the last decade. It has revolutionized industries such as healthcare, finance, transportation, and many others. However, the complexity of AI models creates challenges, including interpreting outcomes, assessing biases and errors, and explicating reasoning. That’s why AI model documentation and explainability have become fundamental aspects of the AI modeling process.
In this article, we will dive into what AI model documentation and explainability entails, how to achieve it, and why they are crucial for the success of AI projects.
What is AI model documentation and explainability?
AI models involve several complex algorithms that process, analyze, and predict data. Documentation is the formal process of writing documentation for every task or step taken in creating an AI model, including making assumptions, defining the training data, and measuring the model’s performance. AI documentation records the details and thought process behind the development of AI models, providing explicit information about its design, architecture, training and testing data, and more.
AI model explainability is the degree to which the internal workings or decisions of a system can be understood by humans. It enables stakeholders to identify the source of AI bias or errors and understand why decisions were made. Explainable AI models are transparent, they can be understood and verified. It enables users to trust AI systems and make informed decisions.
Why is AI model documentation and explainability important?
There are a few reasons why AI model documentation and explainability has become essential. First, it promotes transparency and accountability, enabling stakeholders to understand how the AI model works and why specific decisions were made. It helps with identifying bias, errors, and helps build trust in the AI model.
Second, documentation helps with reproducibility. A study by Nature found that only 20% of the published deep learning models could be reproduced. By including detailed documentation, it ensures that the AI model can be reproduced by others, improving the reliability of the model.
Third, government regulations in some industries require explainability for consumer protection. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires organizations to provide an explanation of how an automated decision was made by an AI system, and provide that explanation in plain language to data subjects.
How to achieve AI model documentation and explainability?
There are several ways to achieve AI model documentation and explainability. Here are some best practices.
– Document the initial hypothesis and assumptions
Before beginning an AI project, document the initial hypothesis and assumptions. Explain what you are trying to achieve with the AI model, and what you expect it to accomplish. This documentation serves as a reference point when developing the model and evaluating the results.
– Record training data and models’ input and output
To understand the AI model’s reasoning, training data and the model’s input and output should be recorded. It helps with improving training data quality and providing context to understand predictions better. This record also helps to detect and mitigate bias within the system.
– Describe the model’s architecture and evaluation metrics
Record the architecture and evaluation metrics to create standardized documentation. This documentation provides transparency in the model’s design, and clarity on how the model performs. A clear description of the model and its performance makes it easier to understand how it makes decisions, which is critical for evaluation and interpretation.
– Quantify the uncertainty
Although AI models provide accurate predictions, they are based on probabilistic reasoning. This probabilistic reasoning always introduces some uncertainty when predicting labels or outcomes. Therefore, it’s essential to measure the uncertainty in the prediction so that it can be interpreted.
– Test and fine-tune models
Finally, test and fine-tune models. Train the model on different datasets, test it using robust validation techniques, and refine the model accordingly. By doing so, model creators can identify and mitigate errors, bias and improve the model’s transparency.
Real-world examples of AI model documentation and explainability
Here are some real-world examples of AI model documentation and explainability.
– Google recently open-sourced Explainable AI in TensorFlow. It’s a toolkit that improves transparency in deep learning models by facilitating the data scientists to understand the model’s decision-making process. The toolkit provides an intuitive visualization of the model’s internal decision-making logic.
– The Associated Press uses AI to generate news stories. The AI system uses natural language processing to interpret data and produces well-texted and formatted news stories. The stories’ output is attributed, leading to content explainability.
– Microsoft’s “Fairlearn” library for building fair machine learning models provides developers with tools to evaluate and mitigate gender and racial biases. By implementing Fairlearn, developers can adjust many models to ensure that they are fair and without bias.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AI model documentation and explainability are critical in ensuring that AI models are trustworthy, transparent, and accurate. Documentation and explainability increase the users’ understanding of AI’s decision-making process, and developers can take the necessary measures to prevent bias and errors. The key takeaway from this article is: documentation and explainability must be embedded within AI model development from the beginning, recorded in readable formats, frequently updated, and easily shared.