How Algorithmic Confounding in Recommendation Systems Increases Homogeneity and Decreases Utility

Recommendation systems are ubiquitous and impact many domains; they have the potential to influence product consumption, individuals' perceptions of the world, and life-altering decisions. These systems are often evaluated or trained with data from users already exposed to algorithmic recommendations; this creates a pernicious feedback loop. Using simulations, we demonstrate how using data confounded in this way homogenizes user behavior without increasing utility.

Factorization meets theneighborhood: a…Factorization meets the neighborhood: a multifaceted collaborative filtering modelFrom hits to niches?From hits to niches?Collaborative Filteringfor Implicit Feedback…Collaborative Filtering for Implicit Feedback DatasetsCollaborative predictionand ranking with…Collaborative prediction and ranking with non-random missing dataMatrix FactorizationTechniques for…Matrix Factorization Techniques for Recommender SystemsPerformance ofrecommender algorithms…Performance of recommender algorithms on top-n recommendation tasksCollaborative topicmodeling for…Collaborative topic modeling for recommending scientific articlesRecommender systems withsocial regularizationRecommender systems with social regularizationEvaluation ofrecommendations…Evaluation of recommendations: rating-prediction and rankingA Probabilistic Modelfor Using Social…A Probabilistic Model for Using Social Networks in Personalized Item RecommendationModeling User Exposurein RecommendationModeling User Exposure in RecommendationDiversity, Serendipity,Novelty, and Coverage…Diversity, Serendipity, Novelty, and Coverage: A Survey and Empirical Analysis of Beyond-Accuracy Objectives in Recommender SystemsModeling andcounteracting exposure…Modeling and counteracting exposure bias in recommender systems.Correcting for SelectionBias in Learning-to-ran…Correcting for Selection Bias in Learning-to-rank SystemsEvaluating StochasticRankings with Expected…Evaluating Stochastic Rankings with Expected ExposureMeasuring RecommenderSystem Effects with…Measuring Recommender System Effects with Simulated UsersCausal Intervention forLeveraging Popularity…Causal Intervention for Leveraging Popularity Bias in RecommendationRecommender systemseffect on the evolution…Recommender systems effect on the evolution of users' choices distributionPopularity Bias Is NotAlways Evil…Popularity Bias Is Not Always Evil: Disentangling Benign and Harmful Bias for RecommendationBias and Debias inRecommender System: A…Bias and Debias in Recommender System: A Survey and Future DirectionsFair ranking: a criticalreview, challenges, and…Fair ranking: a critical review, challenges, and future directionsCIRS: Bursting FilterBubbles by…CIRS: Bursting Filter Bubbles by Counterfactual Interactive Recommender SystemDPR: An AlgorithmMitigate Bias…DPR: An Algorithm Mitigate Bias Accumulation in Recommendation feedback loopsCausal Inference forRecommendation…Causal Inference for Recommendation: Foundations, Methods, and ApplicationsHow AlgorithmicConfounding in…How Algorithmic Confounding in Recommendation Systems Increases Homogeneity and Decreases UtilityEarlier referencesFocus paperCiting papersOlderNewer

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