CLIP模型的解释热图可被悄悄篡改,预测却不变,暴露了解释不可信。
Right Predictions, Misleading Explanations: On the Vulnerability of Vision-Language Model Explanations

- 提出X-Shift攻击,微调图像块特征来骗过解释热图
- 在ImageNet等数据集上,解释偏离原意但预测仍正确
- 适合关注AI可解释性可信度的研究者和应用方
解释机制正被广泛用于提升视觉语言模型(VLMs)的透明度与可信度,尤其在需人工监督的场景。然而,这些解释的鲁棒性仍不明确。本文研究基于CLIP的VLM中解释热图在对抗条件下的表现,发现其可被系统性操纵而保持原始预测不变,揭示了预测行为与解释忠实性之间的脱节。为此,我们提出X-Shift——一种灰盒攻击方法,通过扰动图像块级视觉表征,将解释热图引导至语义无关区域,而不改变预测输出。该攻击不修改模型参数,且在多个CLIP架构和解释方法间具有泛化能力。我们在ImageNet-1k、MS-COCO和Flickr30K上验证,发现解释对不可察觉的扰动极为敏感,但预测保持稳定。相比之下,传统以误导分类为目标的对抗攻击无法产生相同解释偏移效果,即使使用更大扰动预算。结果表明当前解释机制存在根本性缺陷,警示其在高影响应用中作为模型可信度指标的可靠性问题。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Explanation mechanisms are increasingly used to support transparency and trust in vision-language models (VLMs), particularly in settings where model decisions require human oversight. However, the robustness of these explanations remains insufficiently understood. In this work, we investigate whether explanation heatmaps in VLMs, particularly CLIP-based models, faithfully reflect model reasoning under adversarial conditions. We show that explanation maps can be systematically manipulated while preserving the model's original prediction, revealing a disconnect between predictive behavior and explanation faithfulness. To study this vulnerability, we introduce X-Shift, a novel grey-box attack that perturbs patch-level visual representations to redirect explanation heatmaps toward semantically irrelevant regions without altering the predicted output. Unlike conventional adversarial attacks that aim to induce misclassification, X-Shift specifically targets the integrity of the explanation process itself. The attack operates without modifying model parameters and generalizes across multiple CLIP architectures and explanation methods. We evaluate the proposed approach on ImageNet-1k, MS-COCO, and Flickr30K, demonstrating consistent degradation in explanation alignment under imperceptible perturbations while maintaining prediction stability. Furthermore, standard prediction-oriented adversarial attacks fail to reproduce the same explanation-shifting behavior even under substantially larger perturbation budgets. Our findings highlight a fundamental limitation of current explanation mechanisms in VLMs and raise concerns about their use as reliable indicators of model trustworthiness in high-impact applications.
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