# Explainable Predictions

> Provides human-interpretable explanations for individual model predictions

- **Category**: Machine Learning
- **Subcategory**: Trust, Evaluation and Responsible AI
- **Canonical URL**: https://designpattern.fyi/patterns/explainable-predictions/

---

## Description
**Intent**: Surface human-interpretable accounts of which input features drove predictions for user trust, debugging, regulatory requirements, and catching when models are right for wrong reasons.

**Context**: Complex models, especially deep learning and large ensembles, function as black boxes—accurate but without inherent human-understandable account of why they made specific predictions. This matters for trust, debugging, and regulatory compliance.

**Solution**: Surface alongside a prediction a human-interpretable account of which input features drove it and by how much. Use model-agnostic techniques that estimate each feature's contribution by observing how output changes as inputs are perturbed, or use inherently interpretable architectures. Explanations come in local (why this specific prediction) and global (what model relies on overall) flavors.



## Use Cases
- High-stakes decisions (credit, healthcare, hiring)
- Regulatory requirements for explainability
- Debugging and validating model behavior
- User trust and transparency in automated systems






## Trade-offs


### Advantages

- Enables user trust through transparency

- Helps debug and validate model behavior

- Meets regulatory requirements in many domains

- Can catch models relying on spurious signals




### Considerations & Drawbacks

- Some techniques add real compute cost per prediction

- Explanations can be misread if not presented carefully

- Approximate attribution methods have fidelity limits

- Global explanations may not capture local behavior







---
**Reference**: [Original Source](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/ml-design-patterns)