Using Large Language Models to Generate Engaging Captions for Data Visualizations

Understand

Creating compelling captions for data visualizations has been a longstanding challenge.

• Visualization researchers are typically untrained in journalistic reporting and hence the captions that are placed below data visualizations tend to be not overly engaging and rather just stick to basic observations about the data.
• In this work we explore the opportunities offered by the newly emerging crop of large language models (LLM) which use sophisticated deep learning technology to produce human-like prose.
• We ask, can these powerful software devices be purposed to produce engaging captions for generic data visualizations like a scatterplot.