INFORMS Open Forum

  • 1.  Can Large Language Models Replace Human Participants in Some Future Market Research?

    Posted 23 days ago

    BALTIMORE, MD, April 09, 2024 – Do market researchers still need to conduct original research using human participants in their work? Not always, according to a new study, which found that thanks to the increasing sophistication of large language models (LLMs), human participants can be substituted with LLMs and still generate similar outputs as those generated from human surveys.

    Click here to read the full press release.



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    Ashley Smith
    Public Relations Specialist
    INFORMS Public Affairs Coordinator
    Baltimore MD
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  • 2.  RE: Can Large Language Models Replace Human Participants in Some Future Market Research?

    Posted 13 days ago

    Mostly commenting here so that I can get updates on this conversation.  There is certainly cost savings to be gained, although I suspect there are some ethical pitfalls lying in wait using this approach.  I might now have to go play around with some LLMs again, to see what trouble I can get into ;-)



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    Nicholas Ulmer
    CANA
    Pacific Grove CA
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Can Large Language Models Replace Human Participants in Some Future Market Research?

    Posted 12 days ago

    Interesting, and the idea seems obvious, once you hear it. As someone with ZERO knowledge of marketing, two thoughts occur immediately:

    1. Suppose a market survey is interested not just in the most likely sentiment, but also the diversity of sentiments. Can an LLM replicate that? What if I am interested in the "fringe" element that does not contribute to the corpus upon which LLMs are built? Suppose I engineer prompts designed to elicit sentiments from different market segments; will LLMs have very different fidelity on different segments? 
    2. If the results of an LLM market survey become part of the corpus upon which LLMs are later trained do we slowly move away from what people think and toward what LLMs think?


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    Barry Nelson
    Walter P. Murphy Professor
    Northwestern University
    Evanston IL
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Can Large Language Models Replace Human Participants in Some Future Market Research?

    Posted 10 days ago

    Hi Barry, I think these are great questions! Here is a recent paper on "psychologically-valid generative agents", which is not directly on this capability, but certainly relevant: https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AAAI-SS/article/view/27698



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    Esma Gel
    Cynthia Hardin Milligan Chair of Business and Professor
    University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    Lincoln NE
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    Original Message


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