Modeling human behavior with Airbnb

Researchers at Idiap and EPFL have been working with psychologists to understand how people form first impressions from photos. They focused on how people respond to properties available on Airbnb. Better analysis of human behavior should allow scientists to program machines capable of making more "human" decisions.  With just a few clicks on TripAdvisor or Airbnb, you can book a romantic apartment for a weekend away with your partner, or a stylish restaurant for a business lunch. The rapid decisions involved, based mainly on images, are far from trivial given their commercial importance and the economic revolution represented by the advent of on-demand economy websites like Airbnb. But what is it about an image that prompts us to describe an interior as "trendy", "colorful" or "practical"- To answer that question, researchers at Idiap Research Institute and at EPFL have been working with psychologists from the University of Lausanne. They want to gain a better understanding of social media users' perceptions and behavior and then use this knowledge to program computers capable of making decisions in a more human way. "In the era of big data, machines are increasingly behind a large number of decisions," explains Daniel Gatica-Perez, adjunct professor at EPFL School of Engineering and Digital Humanities Institute. "Our aim is to make them as similar as possible to human decisions." A collaboration between psychologists and engineers