arXiv:2510.21292cs.LGcs.CC2025-10NeurIPS被引 4

揭示了加性模型解释的计算复杂性,发现解释难度受输入结构和任务类型影响极大。

Additive Models Explained: A Computational Complexity Approach

  • 从计算复杂性角度分析加性模型解释的难易程度
  • 解释复杂度随输入空间结构、组件模型类型而显著变化
  • 为理解哪些情况下解释可行提供了理论依据

广义加性模型(GAMs)常被视为机器学习中的可解释模型,因其结构能直观反映输入与输出的关系。然而,本文通过计算复杂性分析,挑战了‘对GAMs生成解释应是高效且可行’这一常见假设。在标准复杂性假设(如P≠NP)下,研究发现:(1)与多数常见模型不同,GAMs的解释复杂度高度依赖输入空间结构;(2)解释复杂度随组件模型类型变化,但仅在特定输入域中显现差异;(3)回归任务与分类任务的解释复杂度存在显著区别;(4)将复杂模型(如神经网络)以加性方式表达(如神经加性模型)虽可能提升可解释性,但此优势仅在特定解释方法和输入域中成立。这些结果揭示了多种解释计算的可行性边界,提供了关于解释是否可计算的严谨理论图景。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) are commonly considered *interpretable* within the ML community, as their structure makes the relationship between inputs and outputs relatively understandable. Therefore, it may seem natural to hypothesize that obtaining meaningful explanations for GAMs could be performed efficiently and would not be computationally infeasible. In this work, we challenge this hypothesis by analyzing the *computational complexity* of generating different explanations for various forms of GAMs across multiple contexts. Our analysis reveals a surprisingly diverse landscape of both positive and negative complexity outcomes. Particularly, under standard complexity assumptions such as P!=NP, we establish several key findings: (1) in stark contrast to many other common ML models, the complexity of generating explanations for GAMs is heavily influenced by the structure of the input space; (2) the complexity of explaining GAMs varies significantly with the types of component models used - but interestingly, these differences only emerge under specific input domain settings; (3) significant complexity distinctions appear for obtaining explanations in regression tasks versus classification tasks in GAMs; and (4) expressing complex models like neural networks additively (e.g., as neural additive models) can make them easier to explain, though interestingly, this benefit appears only for certain explanation methods and input domains. Collectively, these results shed light on the feasibility of computing diverse explanations for GAMs, offering a rigorous theoretical picture of the conditions under which such computations are possible or provably hard.

可解释性计算复杂性加性模型

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