Explainability as a Requirement for Hardware: Introducing Explainable Hardware (XHW)

Hardware transparency is a security imperative: The paper identifies that the "opaqueness of modern microchips" creates vulnerabilities where malicious actors can manipulate hardware, threatening system integrity—a concern significant enough that governments are investing substantially in securing microchip supply chains.

Explainability principles should extend beyond software to physical chips: Just as Explainable AI (XAI) has become important for understanding software decision-making, the authors argue that explainability frameworks need to be adapted and applied to hardware design and manufacturing to address ethical and security concerns in the computing stack.

Multiple stakeholders have different explainability needs: The framework identifies "relevant stakeholders" with varying requirements for hardware explainability, suggesting that different groups (manufacturers, regulators, security experts, etc.) may need different types of transparency and information about microchips.

The field lacks structured approaches to hardware transparency: Through their survey of 18 hardware experts, the authors "discover potential research gaps," indicating that unlike software explainability, there are currently no established standards or best practices for making hardware systems more transparent and understandable.

XHW is foundational work for future governance: The paper "lays the foundation for future work and structured debates on XHW," suggesting this is an emerging area where responsible AI and hardware security communities need to develop shared frameworks and standards for accountability.