RAGONITE: Iterative Retrieval on Induced Databases and Verbalized RDF for Conversational QA over KGs with RAG

Conversational question answering (ConvQA) is a convenient means of searching over RDF knowledge graphs (KGs), where a prevalent approach is to translate natural language questions to SPARQL queries. However, SPARQL has certain shortcomings: (i) it is brittle for complex intents and conversational questions, and (ii) it is not suitable for more abstract needs. Instead, we propose a novel two-pronged system where we fuse: (i) SQL-query results over a database automatically derived from the KG, and (ii) text-search results over verbalizations of KG facts. Our pipeline supports iterative retrieval: when the results of any branch are found to be unsatisfactory, the system can automatically opt for further rounds. We put everything together in a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) setup, where an LLM generates a coherent response from accumulated search results. We demonstrate the superiority of our proposed system over several baselines on a knowledge graph of BMW automobiles.

Evidence Contextualization and Counterfactual Attribution for Conversational QA over Heterogeneous Data with RAG Systems

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) works as a backbone for interacting with an enterprise's own data via Conversational Question Answering (ConvQA). In a RAG system, a retriever fetches passages from a collection in response to a question, which are then included in the prompt of a large language model (LLM) for generating a natural language (NL) answer. However, several RAG systems today suffer from two shortcomings: (i) retrieved passages usually contain their raw text and lack appropriate document context, negatively impacting both retrieval and answering quality; and (ii) attribution strategies that explain answer generation usually rely only on similarity between the answer and the retrieved passages, thereby only generating plausible but not causal explanations. In this work, we demonstrate RAGONITE, a RAG system that remedies the above concerns by: (i) contextualizing evidence with source metadata and surrounding text; and (ii) computing counterfactual attribution, a causal explanation approach where the contribution of an evidence to an answer is determined by the similarity of the original response to the answer obtained by removing that evidence. To evaluate our proposals, we release a new benchmark ConfQuestions, with 300 hand-created conversational questions, each in English and German, coupled with ground truth URLs, completed questions, and answers from 215 public Confluence pages, that are typical of enterprise wiki spaces with heterogeneous elements. Experiments with RAGONITE on ConfQuestions show the viability of our ideas: contextualization improves RAG performance, and counterfactual attribution is effective at explaining RAG answers.

Data Processing for the OpenGPT-X Model Family

This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the data preparation pipeline developed for the OpenGPT-X project, a large-scale initiative aimed at creating open and high-performance multilingual large language models (LLMs). The project goal is to deliver models that cover all major European languages, with a particular focus on real-world applications within the European Union. We explain all data processing steps, starting with the data selection and requirement definition to the preparation of the final datasets for model training. We distinguish between curated data and web data, as each of these categories is handled by distinct pipelines, with curated data undergoing minimal filtering and web data requiring extensive filtering and deduplication. This distinction guided the development of specialized algorithmic solutions for both pipelines. In addition to describing the processing methodologies, we provide an in-depth analysis of the datasets, increasing transparency and alignment with European data regulations. Finally, we share key insights and challenges faced during the project, offering recommendations for future endeavors in large-scale multilingual data preparation for LLMs.