让解释反过来提升推荐效果,实现又准又懂。
Can Explanations Improve Recommendations? Evidence from Prediction-Informed Explanations
- 用预测结果指导生成解释,再用解释优化预测,形成闭环。
- 在谷歌地图数据上准确率提升3-4%,仅用12%数据达最优模型水平。
- 用户更喜欢其解释,接近人工水平,适合高可信推荐场景。
推荐系统在数字平台中至关重要,但面临准确性与可解释性之间的根本权衡。黑箱模型性能强却缺乏可解释性,现有可解释AI方法要么为事后解释,要么牺牲精度。本文提出新视角:当解释作为系统核心组件并与预测结果对齐时,可同时提升可解释性与性能。提出RecPIE框架,联合优化推荐预测与由大语言模型生成的自然语言解释。该框架将解释生成嵌入学习循环:预测引导解释生成(预测驱动解释),解释反馈用于改进后续预测(解释驱动预测),通过交替训练实现。使用LoRA微调和基于推荐准确率定制的强化学习奖励。基于多环境统计学习理论,形式化证明解释与预测可相互增强。在谷歌地图大规模兴趣点推荐数据集上评估,RecPIE相比顶尖基线提升3-4%准确率,且仅用12%训练数据即达到最佳模型表现。566名参与者的人类评估显示,其解释受青睐比例达61.5%(基线最高仅16.6%),评分更接近人工生成解释。结果表明,可解释性不再是性能制约,而是提升AI系统的有效设计杠杆,对信任、数据效率及市场部署具有重要意义。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Recommender systems are central to digital platforms, yet they face a fundamental trade-off between accuracy and explainability. Black-box models achieve strong performance but lack interpretability needed for trust and adoption. Existing explainable AI approaches either treat explanations as post-hoc or at the cost of accuracy. We challenge this view, proposing that explanations, when designed as an integral component of a system and aligned with prediction outcomes, can improve both interpretability and performance. We introduce RecPIE (Recommendation with Prediction-Informed Explanations), a framework that jointly optimizes recommendation predictions and natural-language explanations generated by LLMs. RecPIE embeds explanation generation into the learning loop: predictions guide explanation generation (prediction-informed explanations), which are fed back to refine subsequent predictions (explanation-informed predictions) via alternating training. The LLM is fine-tuned using LoRA and reinforcement learning with a customized reward derived from recommendation accuracy. Drawing on multi-environment statistical learning theory, we formally ground why explanation generation and prediction can be mutually reinforcing. We evaluate RecPIE on large-scale point-of-interest recommendation data from Google Maps, where user preferences span diverse place categories. RecPIE improves predictive accuracy by 3-4% over state-of-the-art baselines and matches the best performing model using only 12% of the training data. In human evaluations with 566 participants, RecPIE explanations are preferred 61.5% of the time (versus 16.6% for the best baseline) and rated closer to human-generated explanations. These results reframe explainability not as a constraint on performance but as a design lever for improving AI systems, with implications for trust, data efficiency, and marketplace deployment.
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