Training Models to Explain Themselves: Counterfactuals as a First-Class Objective
Opening — Why this matters now As AI systems increasingly decide who gets a loan, a job interview, or access to public services, explanations have stopped being a philosophical luxury. They are now a regulatory, ethical, and operational requirement. Counterfactual explanations—“If your income were $5,000 higher, the loan would have been approved”—have emerged as one of the most intuitive tools for algorithmic recourse. ...