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Why is it (still) difficult to understand black-box models? Explainable artificial intelligence and the experimenters’ regress

Sep 2026 · Synthese · Vol 208 · 0 citations · 50 references

TL;DR

It is suggested that the notion of the experimenters’ regress (ER) in scientific instruments is useful to understand the situation of XAI, and a new variant of ER is identified in the design and application of XAI algorithms: the validity of XAI algorithms and the workings of black-box models cannot be secured without assuming the other.

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