Auditing Black-Box AI Systems Using Counterfactual Explanations

Abstract: The widespread deployment of black-box artificial intelligence (AI) systems in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, finance, and criminal justice has intensified the demand for transparent and accountable decision-making. This study investigates the utility of counterfactual explanations as a method for auditing opaque AI models. By answering the question of what minimal change in input would alter a model’s output, counterfactuals offer a practical and interpretable means of unders