Content area

Abstract

Methods for model explainability have become increasingly critical for testing the fairness and soundness of deep learning. Concept-based interpretability techniques, which use a small set of human-interpretable concept exemplars in order to measure the influence of a concept on a model's internal representation of input, are an important thread in this line of research. In this work we show that these explainability methods can suffer the same vulnerability to adversarial attacks as the models they are meant to analyze. We demonstrate this phenomenon on two well-known concept-based interpretability methods: TCAV and faceted feature visualization. We show that by carefully perturbing the examples of the concept that is being investigated, we can radically change the output of the interpretability method. The attacks that we propose can either induce positive interpretations (polka dots are an important concept for a model when classifying zebras) or negative interpretations (stripes are not an important factor in identifying images of a zebra). Our work highlights the fact that in safety-critical applications, there is need for security around not only the machine learning pipeline but also the model interpretation process.

Details

1009240
Title
Making Corgis Important for Honeycomb Classification: Adversarial Attacks on Concept-based Explainability Tools
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Jul 26, 2022
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2022-07-27
Milestone dates
2021-10-14 (Submission v1); 2022-07-26 (Submission v2)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
27 Jul 2022
ProQuest document ID
2582280395
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/making-corgis-important-honeycomb-classification/docview/2582280395/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2022. This work is published under http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2022-07-28
Database
ProQuest One Academic