OpenAI Blog

Interpretable and pedagogical examples

arXiv AI
Jun 11

The Standard Interpretable Model: A general theory of interpretable machine learning to deductively design interpretable methods using Lagrangian mechanics

arXiv:2606. 12289v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As Artificial Intelligence models grow in complexity, interpretability has become an indispensable tool for understanding, debugging, and controlling their computations.

By Pietro Barbiero, Giovanni De Felice, Mateo Espinosa Zarlenga, Francesco Giannini, Filippo Bonchi, Mateja Jamnik, Giuseppe Marra, Ruggero Noris
arXiv AI
Sep 21

Self-Explanation Tutor for Active Study of CS1 Worked Examples

The paper presents ESSE, a self‑explanation tutor that uses a large language model to give immediate feedback on students’ line‑by‑line explanations of introductory programming worked examples. It evaluates the LLM’s judgments against a domain expert and a crowd of non‑experts, finding that the model is reliable enough to serve as the tutor’s assessment engine. In an introductory Java course, the tutor’s feedback encourages students to persist, improves the completeness and conceptual depth of their explanations, and shows evidence of learning.

By Arun-Balajiee Lekshmi-Narayanan, Mohammad Hassany, Kamil Akhuseyinoglu, Rully Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky
arXiv AI
Jun 26

Radical AI Interpretability

arXiv:2606. 26523v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We develop a framework for interpreting AI systems as agents, drawing on the philosophical tradition of radical interpretation and the tools of mechanistic interpretability.

By Daniel A. Herrmann, Benjamin A. Levinstein
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 7

From Interpretability Methods to Interpretable Models

The paper argues that explainable AI for computer vision has focused too much on developing interpretability methods rather than assessing how interpretable the models themselves are. It proposes a shift toward model-centric evaluation, using existing tools to compare what different models represent and compute, and emphasizes the need to measure whether humans can truly understand these models. The authors review the current toolbox, survey limited model comparison work, draw parallels to systems neuroscience, and outline a future agenda for model-focused XAI.

By Julien Colin, Nuria Oliver, Thomas Serre
arXiv AI
Jun 15

Actionable Interpretability Must Be Defined in Terms of Symmetries

arXiv:2601. 12913v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: This paper argues that interpretability research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally ill-posed as existing definitions of interpretability fail to describe how interpretability can be formally tested or designed for.

By Pietro Barbiero, Mateo Espinosa Zarlenga, Francesco Giannini, Alberto Termine, Filippo Bonchi, Mateja Jamnik, Giuseppe Marra
arXiv AI
Sep 7

When Does an Interpretation Count as Established? The Formation, Evaluation, and Responsibility of Interpretation in Generative AI

The paper investigates when an interpretation in generative AI is considered established, arguing that passing local factual checks is insufficient. It introduces three concepts—interpretive appearance, evaluation contract, and standing substitution—to analyze how interpretations gain recognition within sociotechnical processes. The authors propose delayed closure as a practice to keep recognized interpretations revisable and outline five public requirements for transparency, evidence, failure handling, contract revision, and responsibility.

By Deyu Jing
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 1

Which one is banana man? Evaluating vision-language models in multi-turn pragmatic interpretation

The study examines how vision‑language models handle multi‑turn pragmatic interpretation in iterated reference games, where participants repeatedly identify novel referents using language. Researchers compared human performance with that of several models, manipulating context by varying its amount, order, and relevance. While humans consistently performed well, the models could use prior context but struggled to build relevant context for effective interpretation, indicating missing core skills for efficient linguistic collaboration.

By Alvin Wei Ming Tan, Ben Prystawski, Veronica Boyce