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arXiv · 2508.00545

Foundations of Interpretable Models

Pietro Barbiero·Mateo Espinosa Zarlenga·Alberto Termine·Mateja Jamnik·Giuseppe Marra
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Abstract

We argue that existing definitions of interpretability are not actionable in that they fail to inform users about general, sound, and robust interpretable model design. This makes current interpretability research fundamentally ill-posed. To address this issue, we propose a definition of interpretability that is general, simple, and subsumes existing informal notions within the interpretable AI community. We show that our definition is actionable, as it directly reveals the foundational properties, underlying assumptions, principles, data structures, and architectural features necessary for designing interpretable models. Building on this, we propose a general blueprint for designing interpretable models and introduce the first open-sourced library with native support for interpretable data structures and processes.

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Pietro Barbiero, Mateo Espinosa Zarlenga, Alberto Termine, Mateja Jamnik, Giuseppe Marra. 2025-08-01. Foundations of Interpretable Models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00545

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