Retrieval-augmented language models (RALMs) represent a substantial advancement in the capabilities of large language models, notably in reducing factual hallucination by leveraging external knowledge sources. However, the reliability of the retrieved information is not always guaranteed. The retrieval of irrelevant data can lead to misguided responses, and potentially causing the model to overlook its inherent knowledge, even when it possesses adequate information to address the query. Moreover, standard RALMs often struggle to assess whether they possess adequate knowledge, both intrinsic and retrieved, to provide an accurate answer. In situations where knowledge is lacking, these systems should ideally respond with "unknown" when the answer is unattainable. In response to these challenges, we introduces Chain-of-Noting (CoN), a novel approach aimed at improving the robustness of RALMs in facing noisy, irrelevant documents and in handling unknown scenarios. The core idea of CoN is to generate sequential reading notes for retrieved documents, enabling a thorough evaluation of their relevance to the given question and integrating this information to formulate the final answer. We employed ChatGPT to create training data for CoN, which was subsequently trained on an LLaMa-2 7B model. Our experiments across four open-domain QA benchmarks show that RALMs equipped with CoN significantly outperform standard RALMs. Notably, CoN achieves an average improvement of +7.9 in EM score given entirely noisy retrieved documents and +10.5 in rejection rates for real-time questions that fall outside the pre-training knowledge scope.
Beyond the Parameters: A Technical Survey of Contextual Enrichment in Large Language Models: From In-Context Prompting to Causal Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Benchmarking Foundation Models with Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Olympic-Level Physics Problem Solving
AAII, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales, Australia（AAII，悉尼大学，新南威尔士州，澳大利亚）；Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands（埃因霍温理工大学，埃因霍温，荷兰）；University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom（利物浦大学，利物浦，英国）；University of New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia（新南威尔士大学，新南威尔士州，澳大利亚）
Improving Context Fidelity via Native Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning
DIRO, Université de Montréal（蒙特利尔大学计算机科学与运筹学系）；MetaGPT；Mila - Quebec AI Institute（米拉-魁北克人工智能研究所）；McGill University（麦吉尔大学）；Yale University（耶鲁大学）；Canada CIFAR AI Chair（加拿大CIFAR人工智能教席）
A Systematic Study of Retrieval Pipeline Design for Retrieval-Augmented Medical Question Answering
Department of Mechatronics & Industrial Engineering, Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology（吉大港工程与技术大学机电与工业工程系）；Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology（吉大港工程与技术大学机械工程系）
Towards Comprehensive Vietnamese Retrieval-Augmented Generation and Large Language Models
Foundation Models Lab, BKAI（BKAI基础模型实验室）；Hanoi University of Science and Technology（河内科技大学）；University of Information Technology（信息技术大学）；Vietnam National University HCMC（胡志明市越南国家大学）
R^2AG: Incorporating Retrieval Information into Retrieval Augmented Generation
School of Computer Science, South China Normal University（华南师范大学计算机学院）；The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)（香港科技大学（广州））；The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学）
Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models for Evidence-Informed Guidance on Cannabidiol Use in Older Adults
Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto（多伦多大学劳伦斯·布隆伯格护理学院）；KITE Research Institute, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network（大学健康网络多伦多康复研究所KITE研究所）；College of Engineering and Technology, American University of the Middle East（中东美国大学工程与技术学院）
