# Case-based Explainability for Random Forest: Prototypes, Critics, Counter-factuals and Semi-factuals

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06679 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06679/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Aug 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI): Concepts, Taxonomies, Opportunities and Challenges toward Responsible AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10045/) (2019)
- [Explaining Machine Learning Classifiers through Diverse Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07697/) (2019)
- [Deep Learning for Case-Based Reasoning through Prototypes: A Neural Network that Explains Its Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.04806/) (2017)
- [Interpretable Counterfactual Explanations Guided by Prototypes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02584/) (2019)
- [Polyjuice: Generating Counterfactuals for Explaining, Evaluating, and Improving Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00288/) (2021)
- [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)
- [The Bayesian Case Model: A Generative Approach for Case-Based Reasoning and Prototype Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.01161/) (2015)
- [Robust Counterfactual Explanations for Tree-Based Ensembles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02739/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Robustness of Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02354/) (2021)
- [GeCo: Quality Counterfactual Explanations in Real Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01292/) (2021)
- [Geometry- and Accuracy-Preserving Random Forest Proximities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12682/) (2022)
- [Even if Explanations: Prior Work, Desiderata & Benchmarks for Semi-Factual XAI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11970/) (2023)
- [An Objective Metric for Explainable AI: How and Why to Estimate the Degree of Explainability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.05327/) (2021)
- [Natural Example-Based Explainability: a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.03234/) (2023)
- [Quantifying Outlierness of Funds from their Categories using Supervised Similarity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06882/) (2023)
- [Even-Ifs From If-Onlys: Are the Best Semi-Factual Explanations Found Using Counterfactuals As Guides?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00980/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Can an unsupervised clustering algorithm reproduce a categorization system?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10340/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The explainability of black-box machine learning algorithms, commonly known as Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), has become crucial for financial and other regulated industrial applications due to regulatory requirements and the need for transparency in business practices. Among the various paradigms of XAI, Explainable Case-Based Reasoning (XCBR) stands out as a pragmatic approach that elucidates the output of a model by referencing actual examples from the data used to train or test the model. Despite its potential, XCBR has been relatively underexplored for many algorithms such as tree-based models until recently. We start by observing that most XCBR methods are defined based on the distance metric learned by the algorithm. By utilizing a recently proposed technique to extract the distance metric learned by Random Forests (RFs), which is both geometry- and accuracy-preserving, we investigate various XCBR methods. These methods amount to identify special points from the training datasets, such as prototypes, critics, counter-factuals, and semi-factuals, to explain the predictions for a given query of the RF. We evaluate these special points using various evaluation metrics to assess their explanatory power and effectiveness.