Graph eXplainable AI (G-XAI) is increasingly important for making Graph Neural Networks interpretable and accountable. While a growing number of explainers are available, choosing the right method and assessing the trustworthiness of its outputs remains unclear.
The paper presents a comparative analysis of six state‑of‑the‑art counterfactual explainers for graph neural networks, focusing on methods that can both add and remove edges to alter model predictions. It evaluates these explainers across diverse real‑world and synthetic datasets, covering binary and multi‑class graph and node classification tasks, using a range of quantitative and qualitative metrics. The study highlights the trade‑offs between explanation size, coverage, and quality, aiming to pinpoint each method’s strengths and weaknesses to inform future research.
By Maria Myrto Villia, Filippos Gouidis, Theodore Patkos, Panos Trahanias
arXiv:2606. 05756v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have demonstrated remarkable performance across a range of applications involving graph-structured data, particularly in high-stakes domains.
By Jialiang Yin, Zheng Zhao, Linsey Pang, Bo Dong, Bin Shi, Jiaxing Zhang
Graph Machine Learning as a Service platforms now offer explainability interfaces to satisfy regulatory transparency, but this transparency can be exploited. The paper introduces a novel model extraction attack for graph classification that operates under strict black‑box constraints, using only discrete class labels and binary explanation masks. The method guides Monte Carlo edge sensitivity estimation toward decision boundaries with Hoeffding guarantees and narrows the search space using explanation subgraphs, outperforming comparable baselines on benchmark datasets.
By Ojas Nimase, Jiate Li, Yue Zhao, Yushun Dong
arXiv:2608. 14121v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) can solve prediction tasks by unintentionally exploiting shortcuts---that is, edges, nodes, and features that correlate with but are not causal for the prediction---which compromise their reliability in out-of-distribution tasks.
By Taraneh Younesian, Steve Azzolin, Antonio Longa, Francesco Ferrini, Vincenzo Marco De Luca, Stefano Teso
arXiv:2606. 03495v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Heterogeneous graph neural networks (HGNNs) have demonstrated remarkable performance in modeling complex relational data, however their interpretability in high-stakes applications remains a critical challenge.
By Zongrui Li, Yuhang Zhao, Ying Zhao, Yuanzhao Guo, Qiang Huang, Yuan Tian