Where Does My Model Underperform? A Human Evaluation of Slice Discovery Algorithms

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Johnson, Nari, Cabrera, Ángel Alexander, Plumb, Gregory, Talwalkar, Ameet
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Johnson, Nari
Cabrera, Ángel Alexander
Plumb, Gregory
Talwalkar, Ameet
author_facet Johnson, Nari
Cabrera, Ángel Alexander
Plumb, Gregory
Talwalkar, Ameet
contents Machine learning (ML) models that achieve high average accuracy can still underperform on semantically coherent subsets ("slices") of data. This behavior can have significant societal consequences for the safety or bias of the model in deployment, but identifying these underperforming slices can be difficult in practice, especially in domains where practitioners lack access to group annotations to define coherent subsets of their data. Motivated by these challenges, ML researchers have developed new slice discovery algorithms that aim to group together coherent and high-error subsets of data. However, there has been little evaluation focused on whether these tools help humans form correct hypotheses about where (for which groups) their model underperforms. We conduct a controlled user study (N = 15) where we show 40 slices output by two state-of-the-art slice discovery algorithms to users, and ask them to form hypotheses about an object detection model. Our results provide positive evidence that these tools provide some benefit over a naive baseline, and also shed light on challenges faced by users during the hypothesis formation step. We conclude by discussing design opportunities for ML and HCI researchers. Our findings point to the importance of centering users when creating and evaluating new tools for slice discovery.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_08167
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Where Does My Model Underperform? A Human Evaluation of Slice Discovery Algorithms
Johnson, Nari
Cabrera, Ángel Alexander
Plumb, Gregory
Talwalkar, Ameet
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Machine learning (ML) models that achieve high average accuracy can still underperform on semantically coherent subsets ("slices") of data. This behavior can have significant societal consequences for the safety or bias of the model in deployment, but identifying these underperforming slices can be difficult in practice, especially in domains where practitioners lack access to group annotations to define coherent subsets of their data. Motivated by these challenges, ML researchers have developed new slice discovery algorithms that aim to group together coherent and high-error subsets of data. However, there has been little evaluation focused on whether these tools help humans form correct hypotheses about where (for which groups) their model underperforms. We conduct a controlled user study (N = 15) where we show 40 slices output by two state-of-the-art slice discovery algorithms to users, and ask them to form hypotheses about an object detection model. Our results provide positive evidence that these tools provide some benefit over a naive baseline, and also shed light on challenges faced by users during the hypothesis formation step. We conclude by discussing design opportunities for ML and HCI researchers. Our findings point to the importance of centering users when creating and evaluating new tools for slice discovery.
title Where Does My Model Underperform? A Human Evaluation of Slice Discovery Algorithms
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08167