Climate AI Nordics

Climate AI Nordics

Nordic network for collaborations around tackling climate change using AI and machine learning.

A Critical Look at Explainable AI

Event date: 2026-06-11

Event location:

Welcome to this week’s Learning Machines seminar.

This seminar is a collaboration between RISE and Climate AI Nordics – climateainordics.com.

Title: A Critical Look at Explainable AI

Speaker: Gustau Camps-Valls, University of Valencia

Abstract: I will give a sarcastic and quite op-ed tour trying to explain why XAI is misleading us. Everything from SHAP plots to counterfactuals may look trustworthy, but underneath, they're often driven by correlations, not causation. In fields like climate, neuroscience and social sciences, that's a serious risk. Inspired by philosophy of science, I argue that explanations must go beyond surface patterns. Fortunately, the frontier is moving fast: causal‐informed SHAP, meaningful counterfactuals (you can't go younger), causal certification in explanations, and structural causal modeling are all promising. Yet, it's time we treat XAI not just as a cosmetic fix, but as a tool grounded in truth: seamful, thought-provoking, and scientifically defensible. And if time allows I'd like to say a few words about why AI needs a new philosophy of science.

About the speaker: Gustau Camps-Valls is a professor in Electrical Engineering at the Universitat de València, leader of the ISP group at the same university. https://isp.uv.es

Location: This is an online seminar. Connect using Zoom.

Date: 2026-06-11 15:00

Upcoming seminars:

  • 2026-06-25: Markus Reichstein, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry and ELLIS Unit Jena
  • 2026-08-27: Ariel Flint Ashery, City St George’s, University of London
  • All seminars are 15:00 CET.

More information and coming seminars: https://ri.se/lm-sem

– The Learning Machines Team

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