Cascade! Human in the loop shortcomings can increase the risk of failures in recommender systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kennedy, Wm. Matthew, Shukla, Nishanshi, Patlak, Cigdem, Chambers, Blake, Skeadas, Theodora, Tuesday, Owadara, Kingsley, Dhanotiya, Aayush
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kennedy, Wm. Matthew
Shukla, Nishanshi
Patlak, Cigdem
Chambers, Blake
Skeadas, Theodora
Tuesday
Owadara, Kingsley
Dhanotiya, Aayush
author_facet Kennedy, Wm. Matthew
Shukla, Nishanshi
Patlak, Cigdem
Chambers, Blake
Skeadas, Theodora
Tuesday
Owadara, Kingsley
Dhanotiya, Aayush
contents Recommender systems are among the most commonly deployed systems today. Systems design approaches to AI-powered recommender systems have done well to urge recommender system developers to follow more intentional data collection, curation, and management procedures. So too has the "human-in-the-loop" paradigm been widely adopted, primarily to address the issue of accountability. However, in this paper, we take the position that human oversight in recommender system design also entails novel risks that have yet to be fully described. These risks are "codetermined" by the information context in which such systems are often deployed. Furthermore, new knowledge of the shortcomings of "human-in-the-loop" practices to deliver meaningful oversight of other AI systems suggest that they may also be inadequate for achieving socially responsible recommendations. We review how the limitations of human oversight may increase the chances of a specific kind of failure: a "cascade" or "compound" failure. We then briefly explore how the unique dynamics of three common deployment contexts can make humans in the loop more likely to fail in their oversight duties. We then conclude with two recommendations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_20099
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Cascade! Human in the loop shortcomings can increase the risk of failures in recommender systems
Kennedy, Wm. Matthew
Shukla, Nishanshi
Patlak, Cigdem
Chambers, Blake
Skeadas, Theodora
Tuesday
Owadara, Kingsley
Dhanotiya, Aayush
Information Retrieval
Computers and Society
Recommender systems are among the most commonly deployed systems today. Systems design approaches to AI-powered recommender systems have done well to urge recommender system developers to follow more intentional data collection, curation, and management procedures. So too has the "human-in-the-loop" paradigm been widely adopted, primarily to address the issue of accountability. However, in this paper, we take the position that human oversight in recommender system design also entails novel risks that have yet to be fully described. These risks are "codetermined" by the information context in which such systems are often deployed. Furthermore, new knowledge of the shortcomings of "human-in-the-loop" practices to deliver meaningful oversight of other AI systems suggest that they may also be inadequate for achieving socially responsible recommendations. We review how the limitations of human oversight may increase the chances of a specific kind of failure: a "cascade" or "compound" failure. We then briefly explore how the unique dynamics of three common deployment contexts can make humans in the loop more likely to fail in their oversight duties. We then conclude with two recommendations.
title Cascade! Human in the loop shortcomings can increase the risk of failures in recommender systems
topic Information Retrieval
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20099