Many real-world planning duties contain each tougher “quantitative” constraints (e.g., budgets or scheduling necessities) and softer “qualitative” goals (e.g., consumer preferences expressed in pure language). Think about somebody planning a week-long trip. Usually, this planning can be topic to numerous clearly quantifiable constraints, resembling finances, journey logistics, and visiting sights solely when they’re open, along with quite a lot of constraints based mostly on private pursuits and preferences that aren’t simply quantifiable.
Massive language fashions (LLMs) are educated on large datasets and have internalized a powerful quantity of world data, typically together with an understanding of typical human preferences. As such, they’re typically good at bearing in mind the not-so-quantifiable components of journey planning, resembling the best time to go to a scenic view or whether or not a restaurant is kid-friendly. Nevertheless, they’re much less dependable at dealing with quantitative logistical constraints, which can require detailed and up-to-date real-world info (e.g., bus fares, practice schedules, and many others.) or advanced interacting necessities (e.g., minimizing journey throughout a number of days). Because of this, LLM-generated plans can at occasions embrace impractical components, resembling visiting a museum that might be closed by the point you possibly can journey there.
We not too long ago launched AI journey concepts in Search, a function that means day-by-day itineraries in response to trip-planning queries. On this weblog, we describe among the work that went into overcoming one of many key challenges in launching this function: guaranteeing the produced itineraries are sensible and possible. Our resolution employs a hybrid system that makes use of an LLM to recommend an preliminary plan mixed with an algorithm that collectively optimizes for similarity to the LLM plan and real-world components, resembling journey time and opening hours. This strategy integrates the LLM’s potential to deal with gentle necessities with the algorithmic precision wanted to satisfy exhausting logistical constraints.