Adaptive Explanation Architecture for Maintaining Human-Computer Trust

One of the most important challenges in the field of human-computer interaction is maintaining and enhancing the willingness of a user to interact with a technical system. This cooperativeness provides a solid basis for a real dialogue between user and technical system. The goals and tasks of an intelligent technical system seem unrealistic without it. In particular intelligent technical systems, which are continually assisting the user in his everyday life, degenerate without this willingness for dialogue to helpers for quite simple tasks and cannot fulfil their original purpose as intelligent assistants for complex tasks. Trust has shown to be an important factor influencing the frequency and kind of usage. If the user does not understand system actions or instructions, the trust of the user in the system will decrease and this can lead to a reduced frequency or in the worst case to a total cease of usage. Therefore, the intelligibility of a technical system should be upheld. This paper is concerned with how the intelligibility of an intelligent technical system can be upheld by providing explanations to the user. Providing explanations may prevent or at least decrease the loss of trust. However, trust is a complex construct consisting of different bases. We show why and how these bases of trust should be treated by giving individual kinds of explanations.