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User queries are often underspecified and may admit multiple valid interpretations. Rather than silently making assumptions about the user's intent, a helpful assistant should surface such ambiguity by asking a clarifying question. Doing so…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Jinyan Su , Claire Cardie

Users often make ambiguous requests that require clarification. We study the problem of asking clarification questions in an information retrieval setting, where systems often face ambiguous search queries and it is challenging to turn the…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2024-05-28 Yizhou Chi , Jessy Lin , Kevin Lin , Dan Klein

Reward models (RMs) play a crucial role in aligning large language models (LLMs) with human preferences and enhancing reasoning quality. Traditionally, RMs are trained to rank candidate outputs based on their correctness and coherence.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-21 Yuhui Xu , Hanze Dong , Lei Wang , Caiming Xiong , Junnan Li

Explanations of an AI's function can assist human decision-makers, but the most useful explanation depends on the decision's context, referred to as the downstream task. User studies are necessary to determine the best explanations for each…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2024-09-20 Eura Nofshin , Esther Brown , Brian Lim , Weiwei Pan , Finale Doshi-Velez

Reinforcement learning is increasingly used for code-centric tasks. These tasks include code generation, summarization, understanding, repair, testing, and optimization. This trend is growing faster with large language models and autonomous…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-01-28 Md Rayhanul Masud , Azmine Toushik Wasi , Salman Rahman , Md Rizwan Parvez

Significant attention has been paid to enhancing recommender systems (RS) with explanation facilities to help users make informed decisions and increase trust in and satisfaction with the RS. Justification and transparency represent two…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2023-05-29 Mouadh Guesmi , Mohamed Amine Chatti , Shoeb Joarder , Qurat Ul Ain , Clara Siepmann , Hoda Ghanbarzadeh , Rawaa Alatrash

Explainable question answering systems predict an answer together with an explanation showing why the answer has been selected. The goal is to enable users to assess the correctness of the system and understand its reasoning process.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2020-10-14 Hendrik Schuff , Heike Adel , Ngoc Thang Vu

To handle underspecified or ambiguous queries, AI assistants need a policy for managing their uncertainty to determine (a) when to guess the user intent and answer directly, (b) when to enumerate and answer multiple possible intents, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-14 Jonathan Berant , Maximillian Chen , Adam Fisch , Reza Aghajani , Fantine Huot , Mirella Lapata , Jacob Eisenstein

Counterfactual explanations are a widely used approach in Explainable AI, offering actionable insights into decision-making by illustrating how small changes to input data can lead to different outcomes. Despite their importance, evaluating…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2025-04-22 Marharyta Domnich , Rasmus Moorits Veski , Julius Välja , Kadi Tulver , Raul Vicente

Conversational search systems increasingly employ clarifying questions to refine user queries and improve the search experience. Previous studies have demonstrated the usefulness of text-based clarifying questions in enhancing both…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Clemencia Siro , Zahra Abbasiantaeb , Yifei Yuan , Mohammad Aliannejadi , Maarten de Rijke

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used as coding assistants. However, the ambiguity of the developer's prompt often leads to incorrect code generation, as current models struggle to infer user intent without extensive prompt…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-07-30 Harsh Darji , Thibaud Lutellier

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly expected to function as collaborative partners, engaging in back-and-forth dialogue to solve complex, ambiguous problems. However, current LLMs often falter in real-world settings, defaulting to…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-07-30 Tenghao Huang , Sihao Chen , Muhao Chen , Jonathan May , Longqi Yang , Mengting Wan , Pei Zhou

Explanations are essential in software engineering (SE) and requirements communication, helping stakeholders clarify ambiguities, justify design choices, and build shared understanding. Online Q&A forums such as Stack Overflow provide…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-01-22 Martin Obaidi , Kushtrim Qengaj , Hannah Deters , Jakob Droste , Marc Herrmann , Kurt Schneider , Jil Klünder

Inquiry is fundamental to communication, and machines cannot effectively collaborate with humans unless they can ask questions. In this work, we build a neural network model for the task of ranking clarification questions. Our model is…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2018-06-14 Sudha Rao , Hal Daumé

Software developers and maintainers need to read and understand source programs and other software artifacts. The increase in size and complexity of software drastically affects several quality attributes, especially understandability and…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2010-04-27 Mohd Nazir , Raees A. Khan , Khurram Mustafa

Explainability has become a crucial non-functional requirement to enhance transparency, build user trust, and ensure regulatory compliance. However, translating explanation needs expressed in user feedback into structured requirements and…

In today's digitalized world, where software systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and complex, the quality aspect of explainability is gaining relevance. A major challenge in achieving adequate explanations is the elicitation of…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Hannah Deters , Laura Reinhardt , Jakob Droste , Martin Obaidi , Kurt Schneider

Recent developments in machine learning have introduced models that approach human performance at the cost of increased architectural complexity. Efforts to make the rationales behind the models' predictions transparent have inspired an…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2020-09-29 Pepa Atanasova , Jakob Grue Simonsen , Christina Lioma , Isabelle Augenstein

While the body of research directed towards constructing and generating clarifying questions in mixed-initiative conversational search systems is vast, research aimed at processing and comprehending users' answers to such questions is…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2024-01-23 Ivan Sekulić , Weronika Łajewska , Krisztian Balog , Fabio Crestani

Decisions in organizations are about evaluating alternatives and choosing the one that would best serve organizational goals. To the extent that the evaluation of alternatives could be formulated as a predictive task with appropriate…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2022-06-30 Charles Wan , Rodrigo Belo , Leid Zejnilović