Shared Interest: Large-Scale Visual Analysis of Model Behavior by Measuring Human-AI Alignment

Angie Boggust, Benjamin Hoover, Arvind Satyanarayan, Hendrik Strobelt

Published 2021-07-20Version 1

Saliency methods -- techniques to identify the importance of input features on a model's output -- are a common first step in understanding neural network behavior. However, interpreting saliency requires tedious manual inspection to identify and aggregate patterns in model behavior, resulting in ad hoc or cherry-picked analysis. To address these concerns, we present Shared Interest: a set of metrics for comparing saliency with human annotated ground truths. By providing quantitative descriptors, Shared Interest allows ranking, sorting, and aggregation of inputs thereby facilitating large-scale systematic analysis of model behavior. We use Shared Interest to identify eight recurring patterns in model behavior including focusing on a sufficient subset of ground truth features or being distracted by contextual features. Working with representative real-world users, we show how Shared Interest can be used to rapidly develop or lose trust in a model's reliability, uncover issues that are missed in manual analyses, and enable interactive probing of model behavior.