Not All Personas Are Worth It: Culture-Reflective Persona Data Augmentation

Abstract: Incorporating personas into conversational AI models is crucial for achieving authentic and engaging interactions. However, the cultural diversity and adaptability of existing persona datasets is often overlooked, reducing their efficacy in building culturally aware AI systems. To address this issue, we propose a two-step pipeline for generating culture-specific personas and introduce KoPersona, a dataset comprising 200,000 personas designed to capture Korean cultural values, behaviors, and social nuances. A comprehensive evaluation through various metrics validates the quality of KoPersona and its relevance to Korean culture. This work not only contributes to persona-based research, but also establishes a scalable approach for creating culturally relevant personas adaptable to various languages and cultural contexts.