Book Image

Interpretable Machine Learning with Python - Second Edition

By : Serg Masís
4 (4)
Book Image

Interpretable Machine Learning with Python - Second Edition

4 (4)
By: Serg Masís

Overview of this book

Interpretable Machine Learning with Python, Second Edition, brings to light the key concepts of interpreting machine learning models by analyzing real-world data, providing you with a wide range of skills and tools to decipher the results of even the most complex models. Build your interpretability toolkit with several use cases, from flight delay prediction to waste classification to COMPAS risk assessment scores. This book is full of useful techniques, introducing them to the right use case. Learn traditional methods, such as feature importance and partial dependence plots to integrated gradients for NLP interpretations and gradient-based attribution methods, such as saliency maps. In addition to the step-by-step code, you’ll get hands-on with tuning models and training data for interpretability by reducing complexity, mitigating bias, placing guardrails, and enhancing reliability. By the end of the book, you’ll be confident in tackling interpretability challenges with black-box models using tabular, language, image, and time series data.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
15
Other Books You May Enjoy
16
Index

Exploring counterfactual explanations

Counterfactuals are an integral part of human reasoning. How many of us have muttered the words “If I had done X instead, my outcome y would have been different”? There’s always one or two things that, if done differently, could lead to the outcomes we prefer!

In machine learning outcomes, you can leverage this way of reasoning to make for extremely human-friendly explanations where we can explain decisions in terms of what would need to change to get the opposite outcome (the counterfactual class). After all, we are often interested in knowing how to make a negative outcome better. For instance, how do you get your denied loan application approved or decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease from high to low? However, hopefully, answers to those questions aren’t a huge list of changes. You prefer the smallest number of changes required to change your outcome.

Regarding fairness, counterfactuals are an important...