TrackRec: Iterative Alternating Feedback with Chain-of-Thought via Preference Alignment for Recommendation
摘要
Large language models (LLMs) show promise in recommendation systems (RS), particularly when using Chain of Thought (CoT) reasoning. However, LLM hallucinations often make this reasoning unreliable. We propose TrackRec, a framework to enhance LLM reasoning for RS by accurately inferring a recommendation CoT (RecCoT) for user preferences. This RecCoT serves both as an explanation and as an auxiliary feature for recommendation tasks. TrackRec consists of a RecCoT generator (G) and a validator (V), which are trained using an alternating feedback learning mechanism. G is optimized via Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) using feedback from V to produce accurate RecCoT. Simultaneously, V is fine-tuned using inference feedback from G to improve its validation capabilities. This iterative process continuously improves both models. Extensive experiments show TrackRec surpasses state-of-the-art methods. It has been successfully deployed on a large-scale advertising platform with hundreds of millions of users, achieving substantial gains. We release the implementation at https://github.com/xiayu-cell/TrackRec .