arXiv (Cornell University) • Vol 1
Problems with Shapley-value-based explanations as feature importance measures
February 2020 • I. Elizabeth Kumar, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Carlos Scheidegger, Sorelle A. Friedler
Game-theoretic formulations of feature importance have become popular as a way to "explain" machine learning models. These methods define a cooperative game between the features of a model and distribute influence among these input elements using some form of the game's unique Shapley values. Justification for these methods rests on two pillars: their desirable mathematical properties, and their applicability to specific motivations for explanations. We show that mathematical problems arise when Shapley values are…