It is a method of making automatic predictions about the interest of a user by collecting preferences

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Collaborative Filtering. It is the technique used by recommender (recommendation) systems to predict what a user will like by collecting the tastes and preferences of many users. Its core assumption: if two users agreed on many items in the past, they are likely to agree again — so items liked by 'similar' users are recommended. It powers the 'customers who bought this also bought…' and 'recommended for you' features on Amazon, Netflix and YouTube.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Social networking is about building and maintaining online connections between people; it is not a method of automatically predicting a user's interests.  (b) Social targeting aims ads or content at users using their social-profile data; it is not the described automatic-prediction-from-preferences technique.  (c) Collaborative publishing is many authors jointly producing content (e.g., a wiki) — it has nothing to do with predicting a user's interest.

Concept: Recommender systems predict user preferences. There are two main approaches: collaborative filtering, which uses patterns across many users' ratings/behaviour, and content-based filtering, which uses item attributes matched to a user's past likes. The definition given — automatic prediction by collecting preferences from users — is collaborative filtering.

State PCS 2020 Q60 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2020 Q60 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer