Moderator: Leila Methnani, PhD student at the Department of Computing Science, Umeå University

Preferred number of participants: 10

I am seeking enthusiastic WASP-HSers to participate in a qualitative study that investigates the compatibility of linguistic theories with eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) solutions! If you would like to support me in my research and explore how evaluation of XAI solutions can be re-imagined with the help of the social sciences, then please consider signing up for this focus group.

This session will turn the traditional workshop format on its head; instead, I will moderate a discussion around the evaluation of XAI methods through a Gricean lens. In conversation, Grice’s theory states that speakers tend to abide by four maxims; these are the maxims of quantity (is the information presented just enough?), quality (is it truthful?), relation (is it relevant?) and manner (is it orderly and succinct?). While no standardised approach to evaluating XAI methods exist, a plethora of quantitative metrics are proposed and adopted variably. This focus group will discuss the extent to which these existing metrics align with Grice’s theory. We will perform the exercise of mapping metrics to maxims and discuss individual solutions in hopes of converging to a collective solution. We will explore interpretations of these maxims in the context of XAI, while also exploring interpretations of quantitative metrics in the context of conversation. How can we reframe XAI evaluation as it stands today and what is missing? The intention is to extract insights that support the direction of more interactive and conversational XAI, without the explicit need for natural language.

Please note that insights will be collected with the intention to process and publish results that inform my PhD work on interactive XAI. Participation in this focus group study is voluntary. No personal information will be processed. Participants are free to change their minds and leave the discussion at any time throughout the session.

I hope to see you there!