Introduction

This chapter introduces the core philosophical questions of explainability and the innate human quest for explanations. We first critically assess the metaphor of AI as a black box and discuss how much we actually know about the functioning of AI. In entertaining a thought experiment about an unfailing oracle and the scrutiny it would receive today, we uncover practical and epistemic purposes for explanations, and transfer those to explanations of technological behavior. This way, we gather elements of what would make a good explanation for technology, and we set out the task for their epistemological and ethical questions.