# Even-Ifs From If-Onlys: Are the Best Semi-Factual Explanations Found Using Counterfactuals As Guides?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00980 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00980/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- ["Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.04938/) (2016)
- [Explanation in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Social Sciences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.07269/) (2017)
- [Counterfactual Explanations without Opening the Black Box: Automated Decisions and the GDPR](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00399/) (2017)
- [Explaining Machine Learning Classifiers through Diverse Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07697/) (2019)
- [Actionable Recourse in Linear Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06514/) (2018)
- [On the Robustness of Interpretability Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.08049/) (2018)
- [Algorithmic Recourse: from Counterfactual Explanations to Interventions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06278/) (2020)
- [To Trust Or Not To Trust A Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.11783/) (2018)
- [Counterfactual Explanations and Algorithmic Recourses for Machine Learning: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.10596/) (2020)
- [Multi-Objective Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11165/) (2020)
- [If Only We Had Better Counterfactual Explanations: Five Key Deficits to Rectify in the Evaluation of Counterfactual XAI Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01035/) (2021)
- [Good Counterfactuals and Where to Find Them: A Case-Based Technique for Generating Counterfactuals for Explainable AI (XAI)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.13997/) (2020)
- [NICE: An Algorithm for Nearest Instance Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07411/) (2021)
- [On Generating Plausible Counterfactual and Semi-Factual Explanations for Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.06399/) (2020)
- [Robust Counterfactual Explanations for Neural Networks With Probabilistic Guarantees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11997/) (2023)
- [GeCo: Quality Counterfactual Explanations in Real Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01292/) (2021)
- [Conditional Generative Models for Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.10123/) (2021)
- [A Rationale-Centric Framework for Human-in-the-loop Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12918/) (2022)
- [Even if Explanations: Prior Work, Desiderata & Benchmarks for Semi-Factual XAI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11970/) (2023)
- [A Few Good Counterfactuals: Generating Interpretable, Plausible and Diverse Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.09056/) (2021)
- [Natural Example-Based Explainability: a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.03234/) (2023)
- ["Even if ..." -- Diverse Semifactual Explanations of Reject](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01898/) (2022)
- [This changes to that : Combining causal and non-causal explanations to generate disease progression in capsule endoscopy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02506/) (2022)
- [The Utility of "Even if..." Semifactual Explanation to Optimise Positive Outcomes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18937/) (2023)
- [Alterfactual Explanations -- The Relevance of Irrelevance for Explaining AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.09374/) (2022)
- [Interpreting Neural Networks Using Flip Points](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08789/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Case-based Explainability for Random Forest: Prototypes, Critics, Counter-factuals and Semi-factuals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06679/) (2024)
- [Semifactual Explanations for Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05435/) (2024)
- [iSee: Advancing Multi-Shot Explainable AI Using Case-based Recommendations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12941/) (2024)
- [On the Hardness of Computing Counterfactual and Semifactual Explanations in XAI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.09455/) (2026)
- [Informative Semi-Factuals for XAI: The Elaborated Explanations that People Prefer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17534/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recently, counterfactuals using "if-only" explanations have become very popular in eXplainable AI (XAI), as they describe which changes to feature-inputs of a black-box AI system result in changes to a (usually negative) decision-outcome. Even more recently, semi-factuals using "even-if" explanations have gained more attention. They elucidate the feature-input changes that do not change the decision-outcome of the AI system, with a potential to suggest more beneficial recourses. Some semi-factual methods use counterfactuals to the query-instance to guide semi-factual production (so-called counterfactual-guided methods), whereas others do not (so-called counterfactual-free methods). In this work, we perform comprehensive tests of 8 semi-factual methods on 7 datasets using 5 key metrics, to determine whether counterfactual guidance is necessary to find the best semi-factuals. The results of these tests suggests not, but rather that computing other aspects of the decision space lead to better semi-factual XAI.