Neural Probabilistic Circuits: Enabling Compositional and Interpretable Predictions through Logical Reasoning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chen, Weixin, Yu, Simon, Shao, Huajie, Sha, Lui, Zhao, Han
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Chen, Weixin
Yu, Simon
Shao, Huajie
Sha, Lui
Zhao, Han
author_facet Chen, Weixin
Yu, Simon
Shao, Huajie
Sha, Lui
Zhao, Han
contents End-to-end deep neural networks have achieved remarkable success across various domains but are often criticized for their lack of interpretability. While post hoc explanation methods attempt to address this issue, they often fail to accurately represent these black-box models, resulting in misleading or incomplete explanations. To overcome these challenges, we propose an inherently transparent model architecture called Neural Probabilistic Circuits (NPCs), which enable compositional and interpretable predictions through logical reasoning. In particular, an NPC consists of two modules: an attribute recognition model, which predicts probabilities for various attributes, and a task predictor built on a probabilistic circuit, which enables logical reasoning over recognized attributes to make class predictions. To train NPCs, we introduce a three-stage training algorithm comprising attribute recognition, circuit construction, and joint optimization. Moreover, we theoretically demonstrate that an NPC's error is upper-bounded by a linear combination of the errors from its modules. To further demonstrate the interpretability of NPC, we provide both the most probable explanations and the counterfactual explanations. Empirical results on four benchmark datasets show that NPCs strike a balance between interpretability and performance, achieving results competitive even with those of end-to-end black-box models while providing enhanced interpretability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_07021
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Neural Probabilistic Circuits: Enabling Compositional and Interpretable Predictions through Logical Reasoning
Chen, Weixin
Yu, Simon
Shao, Huajie
Sha, Lui
Zhao, Han
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
End-to-end deep neural networks have achieved remarkable success across various domains but are often criticized for their lack of interpretability. While post hoc explanation methods attempt to address this issue, they often fail to accurately represent these black-box models, resulting in misleading or incomplete explanations. To overcome these challenges, we propose an inherently transparent model architecture called Neural Probabilistic Circuits (NPCs), which enable compositional and interpretable predictions through logical reasoning. In particular, an NPC consists of two modules: an attribute recognition model, which predicts probabilities for various attributes, and a task predictor built on a probabilistic circuit, which enables logical reasoning over recognized attributes to make class predictions. To train NPCs, we introduce a three-stage training algorithm comprising attribute recognition, circuit construction, and joint optimization. Moreover, we theoretically demonstrate that an NPC's error is upper-bounded by a linear combination of the errors from its modules. To further demonstrate the interpretability of NPC, we provide both the most probable explanations and the counterfactual explanations. Empirical results on four benchmark datasets show that NPCs strike a balance between interpretability and performance, achieving results competitive even with those of end-to-end black-box models while providing enhanced interpretability.
title Neural Probabilistic Circuits: Enabling Compositional and Interpretable Predictions through Logical Reasoning
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.07021