# Improving Language Models via Plug-and-Play Retrieval Feedback

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.14002 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14002/

## Key facts

- Cited by 87 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Human values and AI feedback alignment, one of 10 directions in LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation.
- Builds on 34 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 May 2023.

## Placed in

- LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation / [Human values and AI feedback alignment](https://mlsanity.com/alignment/human-values-and-ai-feedback-alignment/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathways](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02311/) (2022)
- [Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04906/) (2020)
- [HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09600/) (2018)
- [TriviaQA: A Large Scale Distantly Supervised Challenge Dataset for Reading Comprehension](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.03551/) (2017)
- [WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09332/) (2021)
- [Leveraging Passage Retrieval with Generative Models for Open Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.01282/) (2020)
- [SelfCheckGPT: Zero-Resource Black-Box Hallucination Detection for Generative Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08896/) (2023)
- [REPLUG: Retrieval-Augmented Black-Box Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12652/) (2023)
- [Reading Wikipedia to Answer Open-Domain Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.00051/) (2017)
- [Latent Retrieval for Weakly Supervised Open Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00300/) (2019)
- [Automatic Chain of Thought Prompting in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03493/) (2022)
- [KILT: a Benchmark for Knowledge Intensive Language Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.02252/) (2020)
- [Wizard of Wikipedia: Knowledge-Powered Conversational agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.01241/) (2018)
- [Large Language Models Struggle to Learn Long-Tail Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.08411/) (2022)
- [RocketQA: An Optimized Training Approach to Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.08191/) (2020)
- [Check Your Facts and Try Again: Improving Large Language Models with External Knowledge and Automated Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12813/) (2023)
- [Generate rather than Retrieve: Large Language Models are Strong Context Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10063/) (2022)
- [Retrieving and Reading: A Comprehensive Survey on Open-domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00774/) (2021)
- [Rethinking with Retrieval: Faithful Large Language Model Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.00303/) (2022)
- [End-to-End Training of Multi-Document Reader and Retriever for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05346/) (2021)
- [Training Language Models with Language Feedback at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16755/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Knowledge-Enhanced Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04389/) (2020)
- [KG-FiD: Infusing Knowledge Graph in Fusion-in-Decoder for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04330/) (2021)
- [Recitation-Augmented Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01296/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 87)

- [A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Models: Principles, Taxonomy, Challenges, and Open Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.05232/) (2023)
- [Siren's Song in the AI Ocean: A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.01219/) (2023)
- [A Survey on RAG Meeting LLMs: Towards Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06211/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models for Information Retrieval: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07107/) (2023)
- [Chain-of-Verification Reduces Hallucination in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11495/) (2023)
- [When Can LLMs Actually Correct Their Own Mistakes? A Critical Survey of Self-Correction of LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01297/) (2024)
- [Automatically Correcting Large Language Models: Surveying the landscape of diverse self-correction strategies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03188/) (2023)
- [RankRAG: Unifying Context Ranking with Retrieval-Augmented Generation in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02485/) (2024)
- [Chain-of-Note: Enhancing Robustness in Retrieval-Augmented Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.09210/) (2023)
- [Rephrase and Respond: Let Large Language Models Ask Better Questions for Themselves](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04205/) (2023)
- [LongRAG: Enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Long-context LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15319/) (2024)
- [InstructRAG: Instructing Retrieval-Augmented Generation via Self-Synthesized Rationales](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13629/) (2024)
- [Bias and Unfairness in Information Retrieval Systems: New Challenges in the LLM Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11457/) (2024)
- [Cognitive Mirage: A Review of Hallucinations in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06794/) (2023)
- [Alignment for Honesty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07000/) (2023)
- [Self-Knowledge Guided Retrieval Augmentation for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05002/) (2023)
- [Risk Taxonomy, Mitigation, and Assessment Benchmarks of Large Language Model Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05778/) (2024)
- [LLM-Assist: Enhancing Closed-Loop Planning with Language-Based Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00125/) (2023)
- [A Systematic Survey of Text Summarization: From Statistical Methods to Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11289/) (2024)
- [RECALL: A Benchmark for LLMs Robustness against External Counterfactual Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08147/) (2023)
- [Confidence Matters: Revisiting Intrinsic Self-Correction Capabilities of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12563/) (2024)
- [In-Context Sharpness as Alerts: An Inner Representation Perspective for Hallucination Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01548/) (2024)
- [Process-Driven Autoformalization in Lean 4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01940/) (2024)
- [Can Language Models Perform Robust Reasoning in Chain-of-thought Prompting with Noisy Rationales?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23856/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models Can Self-Correct with Key Condition Verification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14092/) (2024)
- [Ever: Mitigating Hallucination in Large Language Models through Real-Time Verification and Rectification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.09114/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Knowledge-Oriented Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10677/) (2025)
- [Verification and Refinement of Natural Language Explanations through LLM-Symbolic Theorem Proving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.01379/) (2024)
- [Small Models, Big Insights: Leveraging Slim Proxy Models To Decide When and What to Retrieve for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12052/) (2024)
- [How Do Large Language Models Capture the Ever-changing World Knowledge? A Review of Recent Advances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07343/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models (LLMs) exhibit remarkable performance across various NLP tasks. However, they often generate incorrect or hallucinated information, which hinders their practical applicability in real-world scenarios. Human feedback has been shown to effectively enhance the factuality and quality of generated content, addressing some of these limitations. However, this approach is resource-intensive, involving manual input and supervision, which can be time-consuming and expensive. Moreover, it cannot be provided during inference, further limiting its practical utility in dynamic and interactive applications. In this paper, we introduce ReFeed, a novel pipeline designed to enhance LLMs by providing automatic retrieval feedback in a plug-and-play framework without the need for expensive fine-tuning. ReFeed first generates initial outputs, then utilizes a retrieval model to acquire relevant information from large document collections, and finally incorporates the retrieved information into the in-context demonstration for output refinement, thereby addressing the limitations of LLMs in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. Experiments on four knowledge-intensive benchmark datasets demonstrate our proposed ReFeed could improve over +6.0% under zero-shot setting and +2.5% under few-shot setting, compared to baselines without using retrieval feedback.