Fact-Checking the Output of Large Language Models via Token-Level Uncertainty Quantification
Large language models (LLMs) are notorious for hallucinating, i.e., producing erroneous claims in their output. Such hallucinations can be dangerous, as occasional factual inaccuracies in the generated text might be obscured by the rest of the output being generally factually correct, making it extremely hard for the users to spot them. Current services that leverage LLMs usually do not provide any means for detecting unreliable generations. Here, we aim to bridge this gap. In particular, we propose a novel fact-checking and hallucination detection pipeline based on token-level uncertainty quantification. Uncertainty scores leverage information encapsulated in the output of a neural network or its layers to detect unreliable predictions, and we show that they can be used to fact-check the atomic claims in the LLM output. Moreover, we present a novel token-level uncertainty quantification method that removes the impact of uncertainty about what claim to generate on the current step and what surface form to use. Our method Claim Conditioned Probability (CCP) measures only the uncertainty of a particular claim value expressed by the model. Experiments on the task of biography generation demonstrate strong improvements for CCP compared to the baselines for seven LLMs and four languages. Human evaluation reveals that the fact-checking pipeline based on uncertainty quantification is competitive with a fact-checking tool that leverages external knowledge.
Code (1)
Tasks
Fact CheckingHallucinationUncertainty QuantificationSimilar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
OLMoTrace: Tracing Language Model Outputs Back to Trillions of Training Tokens
We present OLMoTrace, the first system that traces the outputs of language models back to their full, multi-trillion-token training data in real time. OLMoTrace finds and shows verbatim matches between segments of langua…
Fact CheckingHallucinationLanguage ModelingLanguage ModellingTeaching Language Models to Check Grounded Claim Factuality with Human Test-Taking Strategies
Grounded claim factuality checking is important for large language model (LLM) applications such as retrieval-augmented generation, as it helps users assess the correctness of generated outputs. Existing metrics using en…
Reading ComprehensionDo We Need Language-Specific Fact-Checking Models? The Case of Chinese
This paper investigates the potential benefits of language-specific fact-checking models, focusing on the case of Chinese. We first demonstrate the limitations of translation-based methods and multilingual large language…
Evidence SelectionFact CheckingMisinformationSentence+2ADMIT: Few-shot Knowledge Poisoning Attacks on RAG-based Fact Checking
Knowledge poisoning poses a critical threat to Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems by injecting adversarial content into knowledge bases, tricking Large Language Models (LLMs) into producing attacker-controlled …
Fact CheckingMitigating hallucinations in healthcare LLMs with granular fact-checking and domain-specific adaptation
In healthcare, it is essential for any Large Language Model (LLM)-generated output to be reliable and accurate, particularly in cases involving decision-making and patient safety. However, the outputs are often unreliabl…