Concerning Uncertainty -- A Systematic Survey of Uncertainty-Aware XAI

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 27 Mar 2026] Concerning Uncertainty -- A Systematic Survey of Uncertainty-Aware XAI Helena Löfström, Tuwe Löfström, Anders Hjort, Fatima Rabia Yapicioglu This paper surveys uncertainty-aware explainable artificial intelligence (UAXAI), examining how uncertainty is incorporated into explanatory pipelines and how such methods are evaluated. Across the literature, three recurring approaches to uncertainty quantification emerge (Bayesian, Monte Carlo, and Conformal methods), alongside distinct strategies for integrating uncertainty into explanations: assessing trustworthiness, constraining models or explanations, and explicitly communicating uncertainty. Evaluation practices remain fragmented and largely model centered, with limited attention to users and inconsistent reporting of reliability properties (e.g., calibration, coverage, explanation stability). Recent work leans towards calibration, distribution free techniques and recognizes explainer variability as a central concern. We argue that progress in UAXAI requires unified evaluation principles that link uncertainty propagation, robustness, and human decision-making, and highlight counterfactual and calibration approaches as promising avenues for aligning interpretability with reliability. Comments: 21 pages, 2 figures, journal Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Machine Learning (cs.LG) ACM classes: A.1 Cite as: arXiv:2603.26838 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2603.26838v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.26838 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Helena Löfström HeLo [view email] [v1] Fri, 27 Mar 2026 08:07:18 UTC (472 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs cs.LG References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)