Cited by 38Information Retrieval and Search BehaviorTopic ModelingUsability and User Interface Design

One vs. Many: Comprehending Accurate Information from Multiple Erroneous and Inconsistent AI Generations

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Lee, Yoonjoo, Son, Kihoon, Kim, Tae Soo, Kim, Jisu, Chung, John Joon Young, Adar, Eytan, Kim, Juho·2024·The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency

Abstract

As Large Language Models (LLMs) are nondeterministic, the same input can generate different outputs, some of which may be incorrect or hallucinated. If run again, the LLM may correct itself and produce the correct answer. Unfortunately, most LLM-powered systems resort to single results which, correct or not, users accept. Having the LLM produce multiple outputs may help identify disagreements or alternatives. However, it is not obvious how the user will interpret conflicts or inconsistencies. To this end, we investigate how users perceive the AI model and comprehend the generated information when they receive multiple, potentially inconsistent, outputs. Through a preliminary study, we identified five types of output inconsistencies. Based on these categories, we conducted a study (N = 252) in which participants were given one or more LLM-generated passages to an information-seeking question. We found that inconsistency within multiple LLM-generated outputs lowered the participants’ perceived AI capacity, while also increasing their comprehension of the given information. Specifically, we observed that this positive effect of inconsistencies was most significant for participants who read two passages, compared to those who read three. Based on these findings, we present design implications that, instead of regarding LLM output inconsistencies as a drawback, we can reveal the potential inconsistencies to transparently indicate the limitations of these models and promote critical LLM usage.

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  • LLM-based writing assistants have not reached the level of proficiency to be used without oversight.

    “LLM-based writing assistants have also not reached the level of proficiency to be used without oversight [46, 70].”

    From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [46]

    The Introduction (p. 1) warns that users may accept incorrect LLM responses, and the Conclusion (p. 10) recommends critical examination of generated outputs. This supports the need for oversight, but the study concerns information-seeking rather than the proficiency of LLM-based writing assistants specifically. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Existing work on evaluating figure captions shows that people over-trust AI-generated information while AI can produce inaccurate responses.

    “Existing work on evaluating figure captions shows that people over-trust AI-generated information [49] while at the same time, AI can produce inaccurate responses [46, 70].”

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Lee, Y., Son, K., Kim, T. S., Kim, J., Chung, J. J. Y., Adar, E., & Kim, J.
Affiliations
  • Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
  • Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
  • Midjourney, United States of America
  • University of Michigan (US)
Venue
The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
Publisher
ACM
Published
2024-06-03
Pages
2518-2531
OpenAlex
W4396822175
Cited by
36
References
36
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 2
FWCI
13.71
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
Ministry of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea (2021-0-01347)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information Retrieval and Search Behavior
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Topic Modeling
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
Keywords
large language models, hallucinations, user understanding, information seeking, AI transparency, critical use of AI

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