# The Impact of Machine Learning Uncertainty on the Robustness of Counterfactual Explanations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00063 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.00063/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 42 of its 64 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07874/) (2017)
- ["Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.04938/) (2016)
- [Counterfactual Explanations without Opening the Black Box: Automated Decisions and the GDPR](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00399/) (2017)
- [Aleatoric and Epistemic Uncertainty in Machine Learning: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.09457/) (2019)
- [Explaining Machine Learning Classifiers through Diverse Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07697/) (2019)
- [Learning from Noisy Labels with Deep Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08199/) (2020)
- [Tabular Data: Deep Learning is Not All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03253/) (2021)
- [Deep Neural Networks and Tabular Data: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.01889/) (2021)
- [Causal Effect Inference with Deep Latent-Variable Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08821/) (2017)
- [Actionable Recourse in Linear Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06514/) (2018)
- [Explanations based on the Missing: Towards Contrastive Explanations with Pertinent Negatives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07623/) (2018)
- [Algorithmic Recourse: from Counterfactual Explanations to Interventions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06278/) (2020)
- [A Survey on the Explainability of Supervised Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.07876/) (2020)
- [Interpretable Counterfactual Explanations Guided by Prototypes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02584/) (2019)
- [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)
- [Counterfactual Explanations Can Be Manipulated](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02666/) (2021)
- [Efficient Search for Diverse Coherent Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.04909/) (2019)
- [Towards Robust and Reliable Algorithmic Recourse](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.13620/) (2021)
- [CARLA: A Python Library to Benchmark Algorithmic Recourse and Counterfactual Explanation Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00783/) (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)
- [On Counterfactual Explanations under Predictive Multiplicity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.13132/) (2020)
- [Towards Unifying Feature Attribution and Counterfactual Explanations: Different Means to the Same End](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.04917/) (2020)
- [On the Adversarial Robustness of Causal Algorithmic Recourse](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11313/) (2021)
- [Robust Counterfactual Explanations for Tree-Based Ensembles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02739/) (2022)
- [Interpretable Credit Application Predictions With Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.05245/) (2018)
- [Evaluating Robustness of Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02354/) (2021)
- [A Survey on the Robustness of Feature Importance and Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00358/) (2021)
- [Consistent Counterfactuals for Deep Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03109/) (2021)
- [Algorithmic Recourse in the Wild: Understanding the Impact of Data and Model Shifts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.11788/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Counterfactual explanations are widely used to interpret machine learning predictions by identifying minimal changes to input features that would alter a model's decision. However, most existing counterfactual methods have not been tested when model and data uncertainty change, resulting in explanations that may be unstable or invalid under real-world variability. In this work, we investigate the robustness of common combinations of machine learning models and counterfactual generation algorithms in the presence of both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty. Through experiments on synthetic and real-world tabular datasets, we show that counterfactual explanations are highly sensitive to model uncertainty. In particular, we find that even small reductions in model accuracy - caused by increased noise or limited data - can lead to large variations in the generated counterfactuals on average and on individual instances. These findings underscore the need for uncertainty-aware explanation methods in domains such as finance and the social sciences.