There has been recent uptick in interest in eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI). Here is XAI's mission as stated on its DARPA page:
The Explainable AI (XAI) program aims to create a suite of machine learning techniques that:
- Produce more explainable models, while maintaining a high level of learning performance (prediction accuracy); and
- Enable human users to understand, appropriately trust, and effectively manage the emerging generation of artificially intelligent partners.
The New York Times article Can A.I. Be Taught to Explain Itself? does a good job at explaining the need for XAI from a human interest perspective as well as providing a glancing outlook on the techniques being developed for the same. The force behind XAI movement seems to center around the (up and coming?) concept of right to explanation, that is, the requirement that AI applications that significantly impact human lives via their decisions be able to explain to stakeholders the factors/reasons leading up to said decision.
How is the right to explanation reasonable, given the current standards at which we hold each other accountable?