arXiv:2510.02996cs.AI2025-10

剖析解释AI决策的哲学根基,揭示不同方法背后的隐含假设。

Onto-Epistemological Analysis of AI Explanations

  • 从存在论与认识论角度分析XAI方法的深层假设
  • 技术细节变化可能反映对解释本质的根本认知差异
  • 提醒使用者警惕哲学假设缺失带来的应用风险

人工智能正广泛应用于各领域,但主流深度学习模型本质上是黑箱,缺乏推理过程解释,严重制约其可信度与采纳。可解释人工智能(XAI)旨在通过提供模型决策过程的解释来克服这一挑战。然而,这些方法多由技术背景的研究者提出,往往内嵌了关于解释的存在性、有效性及其说明价值的预设。而“解释”本身——它是什么、能否被认知、是绝对还是相对——是千年哲学争论的核心问题。本文指出,不同XAI方法中蕴含的预设并非无害,它们对解释在不同领域的有效性与解读具有重要影响。我们研究了将可解释性方法应用于AI系统时所隐含的存在论与认识论假设,即我们对解释是否存在以及能否获取知识的认知。分析表明,看似微小的技术调整可能对应着对解释本质截然不同的深层认知。此外,我们强调忽视底层哲学范式可能带来的风险,并讨论如何为不同应用场景选择和适配合适的XAI方法。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied in almost every field. At the same time, the currently dominant deep learning methods are fundamentally black-box systems that lack explanations for their inferences, significantly limiting their trustworthiness and adoption. Explainable AI (XAI) methods aim to overcome this challenge by providing explanations of the models' decision process. Such methods are often proposed and developed by engineers and scientists with a predominantly technical background and incorporate their assumptions about the existence, validity, and explanatory utility of different conceivable explanatory mechanisms. However, the basic concept of an explanation -- what it is, whether we can know it, whether it is absolute or relative -- is far from trivial and has been the subject of deep philosophical debate for millennia. As we point out here, the assumptions incorporated into different XAI methods are not harmless and have important consequences for the validity and interpretation of AI explanations in different domains. We investigate ontological and epistemological assumptions in explainability methods when they are applied to AI systems, meaning the assumptions we make about the existence of explanations and our ability to gain knowledge about those explanations. Our analysis shows how seemingly small technical changes to an XAI method may correspond to important differences in the underlying assumptions about explanations. We furthermore highlight the risks of ignoring the underlying onto-epistemological paradigm when choosing an XAI method for a given application, and we discuss how to select and adapt appropriate XAI methods for different domains of application.

可解释AI哲学基础认知论方法论

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