🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the significant gap between legal requirements and technical capabilities in explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), particularly concerning the EU’s legal right to explanation under Article 15(1)(h) of the General Data Protection Regulation and Article 86 of the AI Act. Through a systematic literature review—screening 2,643 papers and identifying only 19 that meaningfully integrate legal and technical perspectives—combined with legal text analysis and XAI evaluation, the work proposes a “recipient/purpose framework” to clarify the form and content of algorithmic explanations and outlines a four-stage implementation blueprint. It identifies three recurring problem patterns and distills six key open challenges, offering the first systematic account of the structural misalignment between legal mandates and current XAI approaches, thereby providing theoretical and practical guidance for achieving regulatory compliance.
📝 Abstract
When algorithms make or influence consequential decisions---about loan eligibility, hiring, or healthcare---EU law grants affected individuals a Right to Explanation. Yet whether (and how) Explainable AI (XAI) can satisfy this right in practice remains poorly understood, with direct implications for individuals' ability to contest automated decisions that affect their lives. This paper presents a systematic literature review of XAI in the context of the EU Right to Explanation, with particular focus on Art. 15(1)(h) GDPR, Art. 86 AI Act (AIA), and related instruments. We consider papers published from 2024 onwards, as the final version of the AIA was published in July 2024---with Art. 86 being added late. From 2643 initial records identified by a deliberately broad search, we review 57 full texts, of which only 19 papers demonstrate substantive integration of both legal and technical perspectives, showing gaps in the interdisciplinary synthesis of the current regulatory framework. We document three problematic patterns across the corpus: Most misidentify the GDPR legal basis; few engage with the CJEU's Dun & Bradstreet judgment (likely due to publication timing); and the distinction between explanation form (governed by addressee) and content (governed by legal purpose) is often conflated. We conceptualize this as the Addressee/Purpose Framework, propose a four-phase blueprint for operationalization, and identify six concrete open research questions. Without further progress, the Right to Explanation risks remaining a formal obligation without a technically realizable path to compliance.