Explainability of Automated Fact Verification Systems: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

The rapid growth in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led to considerable progress in Automated Fact Verification (AFV). This process involves collecting evidence for a statement, assessing its relevance, and predicting its accuracy. Recently, research has begun to explore automatic explanations as an integral part of the accuracy analysis process. However, the explainability within AFV is lagging compared to the wider field of explainable AI (XAI), which aims at making AI decisions more transparent. This study looks at the notion of explainability as a topic in the field of XAI, with a focus on how it applies to the specific task of Automated Fact Verification. It examines the explainability of AFV, taking into account architectural, methodological, and dataset-related elements, with the aim of making AI more comprehensible and acceptable to general society. Although there is a general consensus on the need for AI systems to be explainable, there a dearth of systems and processes to achieve it. This research investigates the concept of explainable AI in general and demonstrates its various aspects through the particular task of Automated Fact Verification. This study explores the topic of faithfulness in the context of local and global explainability. This paper concludes by highlighting the gaps and limitations in current data science practices and possible recommendations for modifications to architectural and data curation processes, contributing to the broader goals of explainability in Automated Fact Verification.