Evaluating the Groundedness of Long-form Outputs Generated by Retrieval-augmented Language Models

Belangrijkste concepten

A significant fraction of sentences generated by retrieval-augmented language models, even those containing correct answers, are not grounded in the provided context or the models' pre-training data.

Samenvatting

The study presents an empirical analysis of the groundedness of long-form question answering (LFQA) outputs generated by retrieval-augmented large language models (LLMs). The key findings are:

Across multiple datasets and model families, a substantial portion of the generated sentences that contain correct answers are not grounded in the retrieved documents or the models' pre-training data. This suggests that LLMs can generate plausible-sounding but factually incorrect content.

Larger models tend to produce more grounded outputs, but a non-negligible fraction of their correct answers remain ungrounded.

Decoding strategies like beam search and instruction tuning can help improve the groundedness of model outputs, indicating the importance of robust decoding mechanisms to mitigate hallucination.
The study underscores the need for more effective techniques to ensure the groundedness of long-form generations from LLMs, as they are increasingly deployed for tasks requiring coherent and factually accurate outputs.

Statistieken

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The Brisbane Broncos last won a premiership in 2006.
Construction of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona began in 1882 and is expected to be completed in 2026.
The rivers in the Garden of Eden were the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.

Citaten

"The risk of hallucinating increases when LLMs are tasked with generating long content (i.e., more than a single sentence)."
"Even when containing ground-truth answers, a significant portion of the generated sentences are not grounded in the retrieved or pre-training documents and may include fabricated claims."
"Larger models are generally more adept at grounding their outputs in the given sources. However, even for the largest models analyzed (Falcon 180B), approximately 25% of the outputs that contain ground-truth answers are not grounded."

Belangrijkste Inzichten Gedestilleerd Uit

Groundedness in Retrieval-augmented Long-form Generation

by Alessandro S... om arxiv.org 04-11-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.07060.pdf

Diepere vragen

How can we develop more robust decoding strategies to further improve the groundedness of long-form generations from LLMs?

To enhance the groundedness of long-form generations from Large Language Models (LLMs), we can develop more robust decoding strategies by focusing on the following approaches:

Incorporating Contextual Information: Decoding strategies can be improved by considering the context provided by the retrieved documents and pre-training data. By ensuring that the generated text aligns closely with the information available in these sources, the groundedness of the output can be enhanced.

Fine-tuning Decoding Parameters: Adjusting parameters such as beam width, temperature, and nucleus sampling probability can impact the quality of the generated text. Fine-tuning these parameters based on the specific task and dataset can lead to more grounded outputs.

Integrating Reinforcement Learning: By incorporating reinforcement learning techniques, decoding strategies can be optimized to prioritize grounded responses. Reinforcement learning can guide the model to generate text that is not only accurate but also well-supported by the provided information.

Utilizing Multi-document Context: Considering information from multiple retrieved documents can help in generating more comprehensive and grounded responses. Strategies that aggregate and synthesize information from diverse sources can lead to more accurate and contextually relevant outputs.

Implementing Adversarial Training: Adversarial training can be employed to train decoding models to distinguish between grounded and ungrounded text. By exposing the model to examples of ungrounded content and providing feedback on the quality of the output, the model can learn to prioritize grounded responses.

By incorporating these strategies and exploring innovative techniques, we can develop decoding strategies that significantly improve the groundedness of long-form generations from LLMs.

What are the potential implications of ungrounded content in high-stakes applications like medical diagnosis or financial planning, and how can we mitigate these risks?

The presence of ungrounded content in high-stakes applications like medical diagnosis or financial planning can have severe consequences, including:

Misinformation: Ungrounded content may lead to the dissemination of incorrect information, potentially causing harm to individuals relying on the generated text for critical decision-making.

Errors in Decision-Making: In fields like medical diagnosis and financial planning, inaccuracies in the generated text can result in incorrect diagnoses, treatment plans, or financial decisions, leading to adverse outcomes for patients or clients.

Legal and Ethical Concerns: Using ungrounded content in high-stakes applications can raise legal and ethical issues, as decisions based on inaccurate information may result in liability or ethical violations.

To mitigate the risks associated with ungrounded content in such applications, the following strategies can be implemented:

Enhanced Validation Procedures: Implement rigorous validation processes to verify the accuracy and groundedness of the generated content before it is used in critical decision-making contexts.

Human Oversight: Incorporate human oversight and review mechanisms to double-check the generated text for accuracy and alignment with the provided information.

Continuous Monitoring: Regularly monitor the performance of the models and conduct audits to identify and address instances of ungrounded content promptly.

Transparent Reporting: Maintain transparency in the use of LLMs and clearly communicate the limitations and risks associated with ungrounded content to stakeholders and end-users.

By implementing these mitigation strategies, the potential implications of ungrounded content in high-stakes applications can be minimized, ensuring the reliability and accuracy of the generated text.

Given the limitations of current groundedness evaluation approaches, what novel techniques could be developed to more comprehensively assess the provenance of model-generated text?

To address the limitations of current groundedness evaluation approaches and enhance the assessment of the provenance of model-generated text, novel techniques can be developed:

Multi-source Verification: Introduce a multi-source verification approach that considers information from both the retrieved documents and the pre-training corpus simultaneously. By analyzing the alignment of the generated text with multiple sources, a more comprehensive assessment of groundedness can be achieved.

Contextual Dependency Modeling: Develop models that can capture the contextual dependencies between different parts of the generated text and the provided sources. By understanding the interplay between the context and the generated content, the provenance of the text can be more accurately assessed.

Semantic Graph Analysis: Utilize semantic graph analysis techniques to represent the relationships between entities, facts, and statements in the generated text and the source documents. By mapping out these semantic connections, a more detailed understanding of the grounding of the text can be obtained.

Knowledge Graph Integration: Integrate knowledge graphs to capture the semantic relationships between entities mentioned in the generated text and the information available in the source documents. By leveraging structured knowledge representations, the provenance of the model-generated text can be analyzed in a more structured and systematic manner.

Adversarial Testing: Implement adversarial testing methodologies where models are challenged with generating text that intentionally deviates from the provided sources. By evaluating how well the model can resist generating ungrounded content under adversarial conditions, a more robust assessment of groundedness can be achieved.

By exploring these novel techniques and methodologies, we can overcome the limitations of current groundedness evaluation approaches and develop more comprehensive methods to assess the provenance of model-generated text effectively.