Challenges in Applying Explainability Methods to Improve the Fairness of NLP Models
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Abstract (arXiv)
Motivations for methods in explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) often include detecting, quantifying and mitigating bias, and contributing to making machine learning models fairer. However, exactly how an XAI method can help in combating biases is often left unspecified. In this paper, we briefly review trends in explainability and fairness in NLP research, identify the current practices in which explainability methods are applied to detect and mitigate bias, and investigate the barriers preventing XAI methods from being used more widely in tackling fairness issues.
Key facts. Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 72 of its 99 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Jun 2022.
Builds on
72 of 99 references.
References · 72
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50 most cited of 72 All 72 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2022: 2; 2023: 7; 2024: 4; 2025: 3; 2026: 4.
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- 2024On Behalf of the Stakeholders: Trends in NLP Model Interpretability in the Era of LLMscited by 25
- 2023A Critical Survey on Fairness Benefits of Explainable AIcited by 16
- 2023Being Right for Whose Right Reasons?cited by 12
- 2022XMD: An End-to-End Framework for Interactive Explanation-Based Debugging of NLP Modelscited by 8
- 2023On the Interplay between Fairness and Explainabilitycited by 7
- 2022Towards Procedural Fairness: Uncovering Biases in How a Toxic Language Classifier Uses Sentiment Informationcited by 6
- 2023Counterfactuals of Counterfactuals: a back-translation-inspired approach to analyse counterfactual editorscited by 6
- 2023Towards Conceptualization of "Fair Explanation": Disparate Impacts of anti-Asian Hate Speech Explanations on Content Moderatorscited by 6
- 2024Procedural Fairness in Machine Learningcited by 4
- 2025B-cos LM: Efficiently Transforming Pre-trained Language Models for Improved Explainabilitycited by 4
- 2023Concept-Based Explanations to Test for False Causal Relationships Learned by Abusive Language Classifierscited by 3
- 2025Gender Bias in Explainability: Investigating Performance Disparity in Post-hoc Methodscited by 3
8 more
- 2026LIBERTy: A Causal Framework for Benchmarking Concept-Based Explanations of LLMs with Structural Counterfactualscited by 2
- 2024Mapping the Potential of Explainable AI for Fairness Along the AI Lifecyclecited by 1
- 2026Beyond Accuracy: Interpreting Topic Representation in Suicide Ideation Detection Modelscited by 1
- 2023Beyond XAI:Obstacles Towards Responsible AIcited by 0
- 2024MAPX: An explainable model-agnostic framework for the detection of false information on social media networkscited by 0
- 2025Bridging Fairness and Explainability: Can Input-Based Explanations Promote Fairness in Hate Speech Detection?cited by 0
- 2026From Interpretability to Control: Insights from Six Years of the TrustNLP Workshopcited by 0
- 2026SCM-based Fairness and Faithful Explainability for Legal Document Classificationcited by 0
- 2026SCM-based Fairness and Faithful Explainability for Legal Document Classification3 Sep 2026
- 2026From Interpretability to Control: Insights from Six Years of the TrustNLP Workshop11 Aug 2026
- 2026Beyond Accuracy: Interpreting Topic Representation in Suicide Ideation Detection Models5 Jun 2026
- 2026LIBERTy: A Causal Framework for Benchmarking Concept-Based Explanations of LLMs with Structural Counterfactuals15 Jan 2026
- 2025Bridging Fairness and Explainability: Can Input-Based Explanations Promote Fairness in Hate Speech Detection?26 Sep 2025
- 2025Gender Bias in Explainability: Investigating Performance Disparity in Post-hoc Methods2 May 2025
- 2025B-cos LM: Efficiently Transforming Pre-trained Language Models for Improved Explainability18 Feb 2025
- 2024MAPX: An explainable model-agnostic framework for the detection of false information on social media networks13 Sep 2024
- 2024On Behalf of the Stakeholders: Trends in NLP Model Interpretability in the Era of LLMs27 Jul 2024
- 2024Mapping the Potential of Explainable AI for Fairness Along the AI Lifecycle29 Apr 2024
- 2024Procedural Fairness in Machine Learning2 Apr 2024
- 2023On the Interplay between Fairness and Explainability25 Oct 2023
8 more
- 2023Towards Conceptualization of "Fair Explanation": Disparate Impacts of anti-Asian Hate Speech Explanations on Content Moderators23 Oct 2023
- 2023A Critical Survey on Fairness Benefits of Explainable AI15 Oct 2023
- 2023Beyond XAI:Obstacles Towards Responsible AI7 Sep 2023
- 2023Concept-Based Explanations to Test for False Causal Relationships Learned by Abusive Language Classifiers4 Jul 2023
- 2023Being Right for Whose Right Reasons?1 Jun 2023
- 2023Counterfactuals of Counterfactuals: a back-translation-inspired approach to analyse counterfactual editors26 May 2023
- 2022XMD: An End-to-End Framework for Interactive Explanation-Based Debugging of NLP Models30 Oct 2022
- 2022Towards Procedural Fairness: Uncovering Biases in How a Toxic Language Classifier Uses Sentiment Information19 Oct 2022
- 2023A Critical Survey on Fairness Benefits of Explainable AIcited by 16
- 2023Being Right for Whose Right Reasons?cited by 12
- 2022XMD: An End-to-End Framework for Interactive Explanation-Based Debugging of NLP Modelscited by 8
- 2023On the Interplay between Fairness and Explainabilitycited by 7
- 2022Towards Procedural Fairness: Uncovering Biases in How a Toxic Language Classifier Uses Sentiment Informationcited by 6
- 2023Counterfactuals of Counterfactuals: a back-translation-inspired approach to analyse counterfactual editorscited by 6
- 2023Towards Conceptualization of "Fair Explanation": Disparate Impacts of anti-Asian Hate Speech Explanations on Content Moderatorscited by 6
- 2024Procedural Fairness in Machine Learningcited by 4
- 2025B-cos LM: Efficiently Transforming Pre-trained Language Models for Improved Explainabilitycited by 4
- 2023Concept-Based Explanations to Test for False Causal Relationships Learned by Abusive Language Classifierscited by 3
- 2025Gender Bias in Explainability: Investigating Performance Disparity in Post-hoc Methodscited by 3
- 2026LIBERTy: A Causal Framework for Benchmarking Concept-Based Explanations of LLMs with Structural Counterfactualscited by 2
12 most cited of 19 All 19 (JSON)
- 2026SCM-based Fairness and Faithful Explainability for Legal Document Classification3 Sep 2026
- 2026From Interpretability to Control: Insights from Six Years of the TrustNLP Workshop11 Aug 2026
- 2026Beyond Accuracy: Interpreting Topic Representation in Suicide Ideation Detection Models5 Jun 2026
- 2026LIBERTy: A Causal Framework for Benchmarking Concept-Based Explanations of LLMs with Structural Counterfactuals15 Jan 2026
- 2025Bridging Fairness and Explainability: Can Input-Based Explanations Promote Fairness in Hate Speech Detection?26 Sep 2025
- 2025Gender Bias in Explainability: Investigating Performance Disparity in Post-hoc Methods2 May 2025
- 2025B-cos LM: Efficiently Transforming Pre-trained Language Models for Improved Explainability18 Feb 2025
- 2024MAPX: An explainable model-agnostic framework for the detection of false information on social media networks13 Sep 2024
- 2024Mapping the Potential of Explainable AI for Fairness Along the AI Lifecycle29 Apr 2024
- 2024Procedural Fairness in Machine Learning2 Apr 2024
- 2023On the Interplay between Fairness and Explainability25 Oct 2023
- 2023Towards Conceptualization of "Fair Explanation": Disparate Impacts of anti-Asian Hate Speech Explanations on Content Moderators23 Oct 2023
12 newest of 19 All 19 (JSON)