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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fernández-Pichel, Marcos, Pichel, Juan C., Losada, David E.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12468
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Table of Contents:
  • Search engines (SEs) have traditionally been primary tools for information seeking, but the new Large Language Models (LLMs) are emerging as powerful alternatives, particularly for question-answering tasks. This study compares the performance of four popular SEs, seven LLMs, and retrieval-augmented (RAG) variants in answering 150 health-related questions from the TREC Health Misinformation (HM) Track. Results reveal SEs correctly answer between 50 and 70% of questions, often hindered by many retrieval results not responding to the health question. LLMs deliver higher accuracy, correctly answering about 80% of questions, though their performance is sensitive to input prompts. RAG methods significantly enhance smaller LLMs' effectiveness, improving accuracy by up to 30% by integrating retrieval evidence.