A Framework for Evaluating Zero-Shot Image Generation in Concept-based Explainability

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.19855v1
• Date: Tue, 19 May 2026 13:46:58 GMT
• Title: A Framework for Evaluating Zero-Shot Image Generation in Concept-based Explainability
• Abstract summary: Concept-based Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) interprets models using human-understandable visual features.<n>A major challenge, however, is the reliance on large sets of labeled images to represent each concept.<n>In this work, we investigate the use of zero-shot Text-to-Image (T2I) generative models as a source of synthetic concept datasets.
• Score: 5.272074574273609
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: Concept-based Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) interprets deep learning models using human-understandable visual features (e.g., textures or object parts) by linking internal representations to class predictions, thereby bridging the gap between low-level image data and high-level semantics. A major challenge, however, is the reliance on large sets of labeled images to represent each concept, which limits scalability. In this work, we investigate the use of zero-shot Text-to-Image (T2I) generative models as a source of synthetic concept datasets for concept-based XAI methods. Specifically, we generate concepts using predefined prompts and evaluate their faithfulness to real ones through four complementary analyses: (1) comparing synthetic vs. real concept images via concept representation similarity; (2) evaluating their intra-similarity by comparing pairs of subsets of the same concept with progressively increasing size; (3) evaluating their performance for downstream explanation tasks using relevant class images; (4) evaluating how removing a concept from tested class images affects explanations of generated concepts. While current T2I generative models promise a shortcut to concept-based XAI, our study highlights challenges and raises open questions about the use of synthetic data generated by zero-shot pipelines in model analyses. The resulting dataset is available at https://github.com/DataSciencePolimi/ZeroShot-T2I-Concepts.

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