Explainable Quantum Machine Learning Through Interpretation of Variational Circuit Outcomes in Classification Tasks
Muthukumaran Malarvel, K.P. Kaliyamurthie, Antonidoss A
This study explores explainability approaches that are independent of models, with a particular emphasis on Integrated Gradients (IG) and Baseline SHAP (BS) within the framework of parametrized quantum circuits (PQCs). After a thorough mathematical examination, we modify BS to a new Polynomial SHAP (qSHAP) approach optimized for PQCs; this allows us to estimate SHAP values efficiently using rankone polynomial approximations. We prove that qSHAP is resilient even in quantum contexts with noise by evaluating the stability of IG and BS in the presence of quantum noise via the central limit theorem. Tests on the Bars and Stripes dataset with one-, two-, and four-qubit classifiers confirm that our method works in different environments, such as classical simulations, noise models, and actual quantum computers. The results demonstrate that qSHAP offers consistent and dependable feature attributions, whereas IG's performance drops with noise. This suggests that qSHAP might be a useful tool for explainability in the near future of quantum machine learning, resistant to noise.
IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Engineering and Next-Generation Technologies for Sustainability (ICINVENTS)•Nov 7, 2025•0 citations