Adam J. Johs

Prateek Goel, Adam J. Johs, Manil Shrestha et al.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences(NCATS) Biomedical Data Translator (Translator) aims to attenuate problems faced by translational scientists. Translator is a multi-agent architecture consisting of six autonomous relay agents (ARAs) and eight knowledge providers (KPs). In this paper, we present the design of the Explanatory Agent (xARA), a case-based ARA that answers biomedical queries by accessing multiple KPs, ranking results, and explaining the ranking of results. The Explanatory Agent is designed with five knowledge containers that include the four original knowledge containers and one additional container for explanation - the Explanation Container. The Explanation Container is case-based and designed with its own knowledge containers.

Rosina Weber, Manil Shrestha, Adam J Johs

The underlying hypothesis of knowledge-based explainable artificial intelligence is the data required for data-centric artificial intelligence agents (e.g., neural networks) are less diverse in contents than the data required to explain the decisions of such agents to humans. The idea is that a classifier can attain high accuracy using data that express a phenomenon from one perspective whereas the audience of explanations can entail multiple stakeholders and span diverse perspectives. We hence propose to use domain knowledge to complement the data used by agents. We formulate knowledge-based explainable artificial intelligence as a supervised data classification problem aligned with the CBR methodology. In this formulation, the inputs are case problems composed of both the inputs and outputs of the data-centric agent and case solutions, the outputs, are explanation categories obtained from domain knowledge and subject matter experts. This formulation does not typically lead to an accurate classification, preventing the selection of the correct explanation category. Knowledge-based explainable artificial intelligence extends the data in this formulation by adding features aligned with domain knowledge that can increase accuracy when selecting explanation categories.

Adam J. Johs, Denise E. Agosto, Rosina O. Weber

We present a focused analysis of user studies in explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) entailing qualitative investigation. We draw on social science corpora to suggest ways for improving the rigor of studies where XAI researchers use observations, interviews, focus groups, and/or questionnaires to capture qualitative data. We contextualize the presentation of the XAI papers included in our analysis according to the components of rigor described in the qualitative research literature: 1) underlying theories or frameworks, 2) methodological approaches, 3) data collection methods, and 4) data analysis processes. The results of our analysis support calls from others in the XAI community advocating for collaboration with experts from social disciplines to bolster rigor and effectiveness in user studies.