Better Together? The Role of Explanations in Supporting Novices in Individual and Collective Deliberations about AI

TL;DR

This study explores how explanations in AI support novices in understanding and debating AI systems both individually and in groups, highlighting differences in engagement and shared understanding.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the role of explanations in group deliberations about AI, an underexplored area in XAI research.

Findings

Explanations with four information categories aid group understanding.

Individuals engage more deeply with explanations but lack group exchange.

Group explanations help in forming shared arguments and understanding.

Abstract

Deploying AI systems in public institutions can have far-reaching consequences for many people, making it a matter of public interest. Providing opportunities for stakeholders to come together, understand these systems, and debate their merits and harms is thus essential. Explainable AI often focuses on individuals, but deliberation benefits from group settings, which are underexplored. To address this gap, we present findings from an interview study with 8 focus groups and 12 individuals. Our findings provide insight into how explanations support AI novices in deliberating alone and in groups. Participants used modular explanations with four information categories to solve tasks and decide about an AI system's deployment. We found that the explanations supported groups in creating shared understanding and in finding arguments for and against the system's deployment. In comparison, individual participants engaged with explanations in more depth and performed better in the study tasks, but missed an exchange with others. Based on our findings, we provide suggestions on how explanations should be designed to work in group settings and describe their potential use in real-world contexts. With this, our contributions inform XAI research that aims to enable AI novices to understand and deliberate AI systems in the public sector.