[1] The term is used in systems engineering, software engineering, and in intelligent user interface design,[2][3] where it is closely related to recent interest in explainable artificial intelligence.

[4][5] Having access to the subsystem internals in general makes the subsystem easier to understand, but also easier to hack; for example, if a programmer can examine source code, weaknesses in an algorithm are much easier to discover.

[citation needed] That makes white-box testing much more effective than black-box testing but considerably more difficult from the sophistication needed on the part of the tester to understand the subsystem.

The notion of a "Black Box in a Glass Box" was originally used as a metaphor for teaching complex topics to computing novices.

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