Paper ID: 2404.02629

Effector: A Python package for regional explanations

Vasilis Gkolemis, Christos Diou, Eirini Ntoutsi, Theodore Dalamagas, Bernd Bischl, Julia Herbinger, Giuseppe Casalicchio

Global feature effect methods explain a model outputting one plot per feature. The plot shows the average effect of the feature on the output, like the effect of age on the annual income. However, average effects may be misleading when derived from local effects that are heterogeneous, i.e., they significantly deviate from the average. To decrease the heterogeneity, regional effects provide multiple plots per feature, each representing the average effect within a specific subspace. For interpretability, subspaces are defined as hyperrectangles defined by a chain of logical rules, like age's effect on annual income separately for males and females and different levels of professional experience. We introduce Effector, a Python library dedicated to regional feature effects. Effector implements well-established global effect methods, assesses the heterogeneity of each method and, based on that, provides regional effects. Effector automatically detects subspaces where regional effects have reduced heterogeneity. All global and regional effect methods share a common API, facilitating comparisons between them. Moreover, the library's interface is extensible so new methods can be easily added and benchmarked. The library has been thoroughly tested, ships with many tutorials (https://xai-effector.github.io/) and is available under an open-source license at PyPi (https://pypi.org/project/effector/) and Github (https://github.com/givasile/effector).

Submitted: Apr 3, 2024