Why interpretability and explainability matter
Interpretability refers to the degree to which a human can understand the decision that’s been made by a model. Explainability goes further by providing insights into the specific contribution of each feature to the final prediction. These concepts are vital in many sectors:
- Healthcare: Physicians need to understand model predictions to trust them.
- Finance: Regulations often require an explanation regarding why a model made a particular decision, especially in lending.
- Logistics and manufacturing: Explaining a model’s behavior can help improve operational processes, such as inventory management or defect detection, by identifying key drivers.
The XGBoost model itself can become a “black box,” meaning that it might be difficult to explain what factors a model used when making a prediction. This is due to XGBoost being an ensemble model where factors from multiple decision trees are combined...