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Main Authors: Haddouchi, Maissae, Berrado, Abdelaziz
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12759
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author Haddouchi, Maissae
Berrado, Abdelaziz
author_facet Haddouchi, Maissae
Berrado, Abdelaziz
contents The interpretability of random forest (RF) models is a research topic of growing interest in the machine learning (ML) community. In the state of the art, RF is considered a powerful learning ensemble given its predictive performance, flexibility, and ease of use. Furthermore, the inner process of the RF model is understandable because it uses an intuitive and intelligible approach for building the RF decision tree ensemble. However, the RF resulting model is regarded as a "black box" because of its numerous deep decision trees. Gaining visibility over the entire process that induces the final decisions by exploring each decision tree is complicated, if not impossible. This complexity limits the acceptance and implementation of RF models in several fields of application. Several papers have tackled the interpretation of RF models. This paper aims to provide an extensive review of methods used in the literature to interpret RF resulting models. We have analyzed these methods and classified them based on different axes. Although this review is not exhaustive, it provides a taxonomy of various techniques that should guide users in choosing the most appropriate tools for interpreting RF models, depending on the interpretability aspects sought. It should also be valuable for researchers who aim to focus their work on the interpretability of RF or ML black boxes in general.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_12759
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A survey and taxonomy of methods interpreting random forest models
Haddouchi, Maissae
Berrado, Abdelaziz
Machine Learning
68T99
The interpretability of random forest (RF) models is a research topic of growing interest in the machine learning (ML) community. In the state of the art, RF is considered a powerful learning ensemble given its predictive performance, flexibility, and ease of use. Furthermore, the inner process of the RF model is understandable because it uses an intuitive and intelligible approach for building the RF decision tree ensemble. However, the RF resulting model is regarded as a "black box" because of its numerous deep decision trees. Gaining visibility over the entire process that induces the final decisions by exploring each decision tree is complicated, if not impossible. This complexity limits the acceptance and implementation of RF models in several fields of application. Several papers have tackled the interpretation of RF models. This paper aims to provide an extensive review of methods used in the literature to interpret RF resulting models. We have analyzed these methods and classified them based on different axes. Although this review is not exhaustive, it provides a taxonomy of various techniques that should guide users in choosing the most appropriate tools for interpreting RF models, depending on the interpretability aspects sought. It should also be valuable for researchers who aim to focus their work on the interpretability of RF or ML black boxes in general.
title A survey and taxonomy of methods interpreting random forest models
topic Machine Learning
68T99
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12759