unexplainable
What It Means
Some AI systems make decisions through such complex internal processes that even their creators cannot fully explain why a specific decision was made. While we can describe what data went in and what decision came out, the reasoning path between input and output remains fundamentally opaque, even to experts.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
Unexplainable AI decisions create significant regulatory compliance risks, especially in healthcare, finance, and hiring where explanations may be legally required. They also undermine stakeholder trust and make it nearly impossible to debug problems or improve system performance when things go wrong.
Real-World Example
A deep learning system correctly identifies which loan applications to approve with 95% accuracy, but when regulators ask why it denied a specific applicant's mortgage, the bank cannot provide a clear explanation beyond 'the AI found patterns in thousands of data points that indicated higher risk.'
Common Confusion
People often confuse unexplainable AI with simply not having documentation - but unexplainability means that even with full access to the system's code and data, humans fundamentally cannot trace through the decision-making logic in a comprehensible way.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare AI, unexplainability creates critical barriers to clinical adoption and regulatory compliance, as physicia...
Finance: In finance, unexplainable AI decisions create significant regulatory compliance risks, particularly under regulations li...
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Includes:
- 6 industry-specific applications
- Relevant regulations by sector
- Real compliance scenarios
- Implementation guidance
Technical Definitions
NISTNational Institute of Standards and Technology
"impossibility of providing an explanation for certain decisions made by an intelligent system which is both 100% accurate and comprehensible."Source: Roman_V._Yampolskiy_Unexplainability
Related Terms
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