User Preferences for Large Language Model versus Template-Based Explanations of Movie Recommendations: A Pilot Study

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Albert, Julien, Balfroid, Martin, Doh, Miriam, Bogaert, Jeremie, La Fisca, Luca, De Vos, Liesbet, Renard, Bryan, Stragier, Vincent, Jean, Emmanuel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Albert, Julien
Balfroid, Martin
Doh, Miriam
Bogaert, Jeremie
La Fisca, Luca
De Vos, Liesbet
Renard, Bryan
Stragier, Vincent
Jean, Emmanuel
author_facet Albert, Julien
Balfroid, Martin
Doh, Miriam
Bogaert, Jeremie
La Fisca, Luca
De Vos, Liesbet
Renard, Bryan
Stragier, Vincent
Jean, Emmanuel
contents Recommender systems have become integral to our digital experiences, from online shopping to streaming platforms. Still, the rationale behind their suggestions often remains opaque to users. While some systems employ a graph-based approach, offering inherent explainability through paths associating recommended items and seed items, non-experts could not easily understand these explanations. A popular alternative is to convert graph-based explanations into textual ones using a template and an algorithm, which we denote here as ''template-based'' explanations. Yet, these can sometimes come across as impersonal or uninspiring. A novel method would be to employ large language models (LLMs) for this purpose, which we denote as ''LLM-based''. To assess the effectiveness of LLMs in generating more resonant explanations, we conducted a pilot study with 25 participants. They were presented with three explanations: (1) traditional template-based, (2) LLM-based rephrasing of the template output, and (3) purely LLM-based explanations derived from the graph-based explanations. Although subject to high variance, preliminary findings suggest that LLM-based explanations may provide a richer and more engaging user experience, further aligning with user expectations. This study sheds light on the potential limitations of current explanation methods and offers promising directions for leveraging large language models to improve user satisfaction and trust in recommender systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_06297
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle User Preferences for Large Language Model versus Template-Based Explanations of Movie Recommendations: A Pilot Study
Albert, Julien
Balfroid, Martin
Doh, Miriam
Bogaert, Jeremie
La Fisca, Luca
De Vos, Liesbet
Renard, Bryan
Stragier, Vincent
Jean, Emmanuel
Information Retrieval
Human-Computer Interaction
Machine Learning
Recommender systems have become integral to our digital experiences, from online shopping to streaming platforms. Still, the rationale behind their suggestions often remains opaque to users. While some systems employ a graph-based approach, offering inherent explainability through paths associating recommended items and seed items, non-experts could not easily understand these explanations. A popular alternative is to convert graph-based explanations into textual ones using a template and an algorithm, which we denote here as ''template-based'' explanations. Yet, these can sometimes come across as impersonal or uninspiring. A novel method would be to employ large language models (LLMs) for this purpose, which we denote as ''LLM-based''. To assess the effectiveness of LLMs in generating more resonant explanations, we conducted a pilot study with 25 participants. They were presented with three explanations: (1) traditional template-based, (2) LLM-based rephrasing of the template output, and (3) purely LLM-based explanations derived from the graph-based explanations. Although subject to high variance, preliminary findings suggest that LLM-based explanations may provide a richer and more engaging user experience, further aligning with user expectations. This study sheds light on the potential limitations of current explanation methods and offers promising directions for leveraging large language models to improve user satisfaction and trust in recommender systems.
title User Preferences for Large Language Model versus Template-Based Explanations of Movie Recommendations: A Pilot Study
topic Information Retrieval
Human-Computer Interaction
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.06297