AI Engineering 6 min read Mar 14, 2026

Explainable and Interpretable Models are Important in Machine Learning

R
Rivira Tech Engineering Team
Practical AI, Taught & Built

Explainable and Interpretable Models are Important in Machine Learning

Learn to use libraries such as LIME, SHAP and others to determine the workings of black-box machine learning models with examples and illustrations, ensuring that they are safe, fair and have less bias
Explainable and interpretable machine learning models

Artificial intelligence and machine learning models have garnered significant attention due to their incredible capabilities in generating texts, predicting sentiments, and making accurate forecasts. However, a growing focus within this field is on developing explainable and interpretable models.

Consider the scenario of building a loan default classifier based on factors like age, gender, and race. While the classifier may accurately predict defaults for a specific subset of the population, questions arise regarding its accuracy for other groups. Unfair advantages and biases can emerge, granting certain groups easier access to loans while disadvantaging others.

In this article, we delve into libraries that facilitate interpretability in machine learning models, such as LIME, SHAP, and others.

Import the Libraries

We will be importing a list of libraries that are important for the task of predicting whether a person is making an income of $50k dollars per annum.

Importing machine learning libraries

Read the Data

To facilitate data analysis, we utilize the fetch_openml function, which allows us to retrieve the data without storing it locally.

Reading data using fetch_openml

Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

This is an important step in machine learning, where we tend to find patterns and trends in the data.

Exploratory data analysis
Income Distribution
Income Distribution (Image by Author)
Income distribution analysis
Age Histogram
Age Histogram (Image by Author)
Correlation Heatmap
Correlation Heatmap (Image by Author)
Income based on Age
Income based on Age (Image by Author)
Count of Workclass based on Income
Count of Workclass based on Income (Image by Author)

Machine Learning Predictions

Random Forest Predictions
Random Forest Predictions (Image by Author)

Interpretability and Explainability

Random Forest Feature Importance
Random Forest Feature Importance (Image by Author)
LIME Feature Importance
LIME Feature Importance (Image by Author)
LIME Feature Importance
LIME Feature Importance (Image by Author)
SHAP Feature Importance
SHAP Feature Importance (Image by Author)

Conclusion

In conclusion, this article highlights the importance of exploratory data analysis (EDA) in data science.

Through EDA and interpretability libraries, we gain a deeper understanding of our models’ inner workings.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article.

Back to All Articles
Share: