Investigating Co-Constructive Behavior of Large Language Models in Explanation Dialogues

The ability to generate explanations that are understood by explainees is the quintessence of explainable artificial intelligence. Since understanding depends on the explainee's background and needs, recent research has focused on co-constructive explanation dialogues, where the explainer continuously monitors the explainee's understanding and adapts explanations dynamically. We investigate the ability of large language models (LLMs) to engage as explainers in co-constructive explanation dialogues. In particular, we present a user study in which explainees interact with LLMs, of which some have been instructed to explain a predefined topic co-constructively. We evaluate the explainees' understanding before and after the dialogue, as well as their perception of the LLMs' co-constructive behavior. Our results indicate that current LLMs show some co-constructive behaviors, such as asking verification questions, that foster the explainees' engagement and can improve understanding of a topic. However, their ability to effectively monitor the current understanding and scaffold the explanations accordingly remains limited.

Forms of Understanding of XAI-Explanations

Explainability has become an important topic in computer science and artificial intelligence, leading to a subfield called Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI). The goal of providing or seeking explanations is to achieve (better) 'understanding' on the part of the explainee. However, what it means to 'understand' is still not clearly defined, and the concept itself is rarely the subject of scientific investigation. This conceptual article aims to present a model of forms of understanding in the context of XAI and beyond. From an interdisciplinary perspective bringing together computer science, linguistics, sociology, and psychology, a definition of understanding and its forms, assessment, and dynamics during the process of giving everyday explanations are explored. Two types of understanding are considered as possible outcomes of explanations, namely enabledness, 'knowing how' to do or decide something, and comprehension, 'knowing that' -- both in different degrees (from shallow to deep). Explanations regularly start with shallow understanding in a specific domain and can lead to deep comprehension and enabledness of the explanandum, which we see as a prerequisite for human users to gain agency. In this process, the increase of comprehension and enabledness are highly interdependent. Against the background of this systematization, special challenges of understanding in XAI are discussed.