The Technical Group on Media Experience and Virtual Environment, sponsored by the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), has named Mercari R4D researcher Miyuki Fujiwara a recipient of their signature Media Experience and Virtual Environment (MVE) Award. The award-winning research was a joint effort shared between Miyuki Fujiwara, Ari Hautasaari (University of Tokyo Graduate School Project Associate Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies), and Rintaro Chujo (University of Tokyo Master’s Student, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies). The three are members of the Value Exchange Engineering project, a comprehensive partnership program between Mercari and the University of Tokyo.
- Name of award
- MVE Award—Granted by the Technical Group on Media Experience and Virtual Environment, which is sponsored by The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
- Topic
- A Study on Human-AI Collaboration for Creating Product Descriptions in Flea Market Apps
- Reason for receiving award
- The research looked at leveraging large language models (LLMs) to assist in the creation of item descriptions with the aim of reducing the burden that marketplace app sellers face when listing items. An online study, conducted with 42 participants, analyzed how introducing LLM technology affected the user experience of sellers, the quality of item descriptions, and the value of items. The results of the study showed that support using LLM technology is effective at reducing the burden placed on sellers, and also provide insights into design implications, including addressing issues such as “social loafing” and the risk of lowered content accuracy. Based on these results, the research was recommended for an MVE Award to propel further developments in this field.
- Download the full paper here (PDF)
- Program website (IEICE Technical Committee Submission System)
What is The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers?
The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) is one of the largest academic societies in Japan, dealing with a wide range of specialized fields in electronic information and communication technology. The Technical Group on Media Experience and Virtual Environment is a group belonging to the Human Communication Group, a subsidiary organization of IEICE. It provides a place to present and discuss findings related to new experiences using media and research results related to human interaction infrastructure in non-physical environments, such as virtual reality.
- Official website: https://www.ieice.org/~mve/en/
Comment from award recipient
Miyuki Fujiwara (Mercari R4D Researcher)
We have reached a period where humans and AI collaborate to write text. With AI now a common part of our lives, I wondered if I could apply this to a marketplace app scenario, that is, what would happen if sellers used AI to write item descriptions. The difficult part was designing the study. My co-researchers Ari Hautasaari and Rintaro Chujo and I had many discussions about how to use ever-evolving LLM technology to create a design that would best replicate the experience of listing an item on a marketplace app using a test website and also satisfy academic appropriateness. In the end, we saw that the LLMs generated attractive item listings that caused the seller to adjust the price of the item or promoted “social loafing,” which was a very interesting finding. In the future, we plan to conduct more refined experiments further to clarify the impact this technology will have on the C2C market as a whole. Building on our work in 2023, I am grateful to once again receive the MVE Award with this team. Thank you.
Ari Hautasaari (Project Associate Professor, Research Institute for an Inclusive Society through Engineering, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, The University of Tokyo) and Rintaro Chujo (University of Tokyo Master’s Student and Research Assistant, Research Institute for an Inclusive Society through Engineering, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies), both members of the Value Exchange Engineering project.
We are delighted to hear that our joint research with Miyuki Fujiwara has won an MVE Award. Generative AI technology has become commonplace and is being used as a tool to help people write text. Our research explores how AI influences the experience of writing text and what impact it has on sales transactions. The research also aims to academically discover the potential of the user experience (UX) in the near future. Working toward our common goal of defining desired communication, we had discussions focusing on different relationships: the correlation between linguistics, informatics, and psychology; between social implementation and research; between the present and the future; and between Mercari and the University of Tokyo. Going forward, we will continue to focus on new technology and the potential of communication in the near future and engage in activities suitable for both research and social implementation.
Mercari R4D webpage on the Value Exchange Engineering project: https://r4d.mercari.com/en/vxe/