# Answer-Set Programs for Reasoning about Counterfactual Interventions and Responsibility Scores for Classification

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.10159 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10159/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 44 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jul 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Actionable Recourse in Linear Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06514/) (2018)
- [Algorithmic recourse under imperfect causal knowledge: a probabilistic approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06831/) (2020)
- [A Modification of the Halpern-Pearl Definition of Causality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.00162/) (2015)
- [Causality-based Explanation of Classification Outcomes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.06868/) (2020)
- [How to build your own ASP-based system?!](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.06692/) (2020)
- [Declarative Approaches to Counterfactual Explanations for Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.07423/) (2020)
- [From Causes for Database Queries to Repairs and Model-Based Diagnosis and Back](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.4311/) (2014)
- [An ASP-Based Approach to Counterfactual Explanations for Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.13237/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Explanations in Data Management and Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12799/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Attribution-Scores and Causal Counterfactuals as Explanations in Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.02829/) (2023)
- [CoGS: Causality Constrained Counterfactual Explanations using goal-directed ASP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08179/) (2024)
- [Reasoning about Counterfactuals and Explanations: Problems, Results and Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11004/) (2021)
- [Answer-Set Programs for Repair Updates and Counterfactual Interventions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12110/) (2022)
- [Counterfactual Explanation Generation with s(CASP)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.14497/) (2023)
- [Counterfactual Generation with Answer Set Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.04382/) (2024)
- [CFGs: Causality Constrained Counterfactual Explanations using goal-directed ASP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15956/) (2024)
- [P2C: Path to Counterfactuals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20371/) (2025)
- [PACE: A Neuro-Symbolic Framework for Plausible and Actionable Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.01306/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We describe how answer-set programs can be used to declaratively specify counterfactual interventions on entities under classification, and reason about them. In particular, they can be used to define and compute responsibility scores as attribution-based explanations for outcomes from classification models. The approach allows for the inclusion of domain knowledge and supports query answering. A detailed example with a naive-Bayes classifier is presented.