Implementing Persona in the Business Sector by A Universal Explainable AI Framework Based on Byte-Pair Encoding

ZHENYAO LIU1, Yu-Lun Liu2, Wei-Chang Yeh2 and Chia-Ling Huang3

  1. School of Economics and Management, Taizhou University
    Taizhou 225300, Jiangsu Province, China
    zyliu@tzu.edu.cn
  2. Integration and Collaboration Laboratory, Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University
    Hsinchu 300044, Taiwan
    morris.cy0910@gmail.com, yeh@ieee.org
  3. Department of International Logistics and Transportation Management, Kainan University
    Taoyuan 33857, Taiwan
    clhuang@mail.knu.edu.tw

Abstract

In the commercial realm, particularly for businesses targeting consumers (B2C), the challenge of acquiring and retaining valuable potential customers is paramount. As chip technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, in line with Moore’s Law, various innovative AI technologies have emerged, yet this also highlights the infamous “black-box” issue. Naturally, this has paved the way for the rise of Explainable AI (XAI) and machine learning. In response, this study proposes a universal explainability framework to tackle both the black-box conundrum and the limitation of customer list sizes. The framework leverages the fundamental Byte-Pair Encoding (BPE) algorithm from large language models to tokenize natural language data, integrating the results into customer data as feature columns, thereby constructing comprehensive Persona. Crucially, domain experts are involved in the model-building process, selecting and recommending features. These experts utilize depth-first search to identify additional, similar feature columns, which are then used as target categories for machine learning models. The final step involves classification tasks and prediction evaluations. The proposed framework demonstrates its effectiveness and generalizability through validation on public datasets, increasing the number of potential customers by 7.5 times compared to traditional modeling approaches. In case studies, the framework outperforms customer lists generated by experts based on past experience, yielding 2.4 times more customers, 3.8 times higher response rates, and 9 times more total respondents. More importantly, both the model-building process and predictive outcomes are interpretable through domain knowledge, enabling businesses to transfer experience and expertise, thus laying a solid foundation for large language models within the industry.

Key words

Natural Language Processing, Byte-Pair Encoding, Persona, Explain-able Machine Learning, Business Sector

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS241130068L

How to cite

LIU, Z., Liu, Y., Yeh, W., Huang, C.: Implementing Persona in the Business Sector by A Universal Explainable AI Framework Based on Byte-Pair Encoding. Computer Science and Information Systems, https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS241130068L