Developers need debugging information; end users need grounds for action — they cannot share one explanation

What it is

Activation maps, losses, and feature-dimension names on an engineering pane help a developer judge whether the model is looking in the wrong place. Send the same pane to an applicant and they cannot use it to decide which page to add. Developers need debugging information; end users need grounds for action; the two explanations cannot be shared.

This is not one article at two depths. It is two passing bars.

Why it happens

The passing bar for debugging is: can you locate the fault, reproduce it, change the model or the data, and test again. The passing bar for action is: can you pick a next step inside what you control — add materials, change an input, accept, hand off. The materials differ. An activation map meets the first and almost never the second; “income proof is missing” meets the second and does not help locate which layer’s gradient exploded.

The usual reason for sharing one is thrift: it is all called explanation. Thrift leaks debugging vocabulary onto the person’s interface; users treat layer names and weights as their duty to understand, and when that fails they blame themselves. Miller treats explanation as communication aimed at an audience; change the audience and the passing answer changes with it. Local versus global changes scope. It does not change audience.

Studying it

Pack the same output as a debug bundle (tensor names, activations, loss contributions) and an action bundle (checkable facts, available acts), and give them to developers and applicants to do their own jobs: find an injected fault / decide what to add. Independent variables: pack type, whether each audience can see the other’s pack. Dependent variables: time to locate the fault, relevance of the action, times debugging vocabulary is mistaken for case-level grounds.

A developer’s failure on the action pack and an applicant’s failure on the debug pack must be reported separately. “The specialists all understood it” does not certify the end-user version.

Where it stops holding

On an internal tool whose user is the developer, debugging information is grounds for action, and sharing holds. If the applicant happens to be a model engineer in that domain, still supply the action pack for the applicant task and open the debug pack as a second entry — task is not identity. Oversight may need a third pack, neither debug nor action-coaching for the person concerned. This entry does not treat how long transparency should be.

Applying it

• Build two surfaces: an engineering backstage and an account for the person concerned. Do not jump between them by default; if needed, use an explicit “developer view,” not tensor names in a denial letter.
• Nouns in the person’s account must map onto something they can change or check. Drop dimension names that do not map.
• Review the explanation feature in two sessions: one with people who can fix the model, one with people who will receive the result. Passing one does not pass the other.
• Check: hide identity, look only at the copy, and ask “after reading this, can you fix the model” and “after reading this, do you know your next step.” Two yeses from the same paragraph usually means one of them is fake; split and rewrite.

Related

• Same group: L5.02.1 A local explanation accounts for a single output · L5.02.2 A global explanation accounts for overall behavioural tendency · L5.02.3 Users need different explanation levels in different situations · L5.02.4 Local explanations support accepting or contesting a single result · L5.02.5 Global explanations support judging whether to keep relying on the system · L5.02.6 An overall impression induced from a few local explanations is often wrong · L5.02.7 Feature importance is a correlation ranking, not a causal account
• Nearby: L5.05 The Moderation Principle of Transparency · L5.01 Types of Explainability · L5.08 Counterfactual Explanations
• Search terms: developer vs end-user explanation · debugging information · actionable grounds