SHF: Small: A Theory of Explanation Languages

对计算系统的信任取决于对其行为的理解。当用户面对意想不到和无法解释的结果时，他们可能不愿意再依赖这样的系统。随着计算机系统控制着我们生活中越来越多的部分，确保它们是负责任的，并能够证明它们的决定和行动是合理的，这一点很重要。例如，我们想知道决策支持系统是如何得出对特定医疗保健计划的建议的，或者为什么自动驾驶汽车无法避免事故。尽管有了解计算系统的需要，但今天很少有系统向用户解释它们的行为。这项研究探索了解释的性质，以及如何将其用于创建能够向程序员和用户解释其行为的计算系统。在分析解释的性质和性质的基础上，本研究探讨了解释的合成和转换的操作以及与计算的一致性。研究的一部分是制定判断解释质量的标准，并为解释语言的设计和实施制定指导方针。综上所述，本研究提出了解释语言的理论。发展的理论所建议的范例解释语言的发展以及根据解释质量标准对它们的评估支持了对研究进展的评估。这个项目的更广泛的影响包括对研究生、本科生和高中生的支持，他们将把这个项目中提出的想法带到世界各地。此外，解释理论和系统地向计算系统添加解释的框架使软件开发人员能够使他们的产品更广泛地被理解和信任，从而最终提高社会对新技术的接受度。这项研究导致了影响未来软件设计的方法和工具。鉴于软件在我们生活的各个方面的重要性，以及对了解其行为的日益增长的需求，这项研究的中长期实践影响可能是巨大的。

Trust in a computing system depends on understanding its behavior. When users are confronted with unexpected and unexplained results, they may not be willing to rely on such a system anymore. With computing systems controlling ever-increasing parts of our lives, it is important to ensure that they are accountable and can justify their decisions and actions. For example, we want to know how a decision support system arrived at its suggestion for a particular health-care plan or why a self-driving car could not avoid an accident. Despite this need for understanding computing systems, few systems today explain their behavior to their users. This research explores the nature of explanations and how they can be employed in the creation of computing systems that can explain their behavior to programmers and users. Based on an analysis of the nature of explanations and their properties, this research explores operations for the composition and transformation of explanations and the alignment with computations. Part of the research is the development of criteria to judge the quality of explanations and develop guidelines for the design and implementation of explanation languages. Altogether, this research produces a theory of explanation languages. The development of example explanation languages as suggested by the developed theory and their evaluation according to the explanation quality criteria supports the assessment of the research progress. The broader impact of this project includes support for graduate, undergraduate, and high school students who will carry the ideas developed in this project out into the world. Moreover, a theory of explanations and a framework for systematically adding explanations to computing systems empowers software developers to make their products more widely understandable and trustworthy, which ultimately enhances the acceptance of new technologies in society. This research leads to methods and tools that affect the design of future software. Given the importance of software in all aspects of our lives and the growing need for understanding its behaviors, the middle- and long-term practical impact of this research can be enormous.