首次构建可复现的引用评估框架,检验大模型报告中引用的真实可靠性。
Cited but Not Verified: Parsing and Evaluating Source Attribution in LLM Deep Research Agents

- 用可复现的AST解析器提取并评估大模型生成报告中的引用内容。
- 顶尖模型引用链接有效率超94%,但事实准确性仅39%-77%。
- 揭示检索越多引用越不准,适合关注生成可信报告的研究者使用。
大型语言模型驱动的深度研究代理从数百个网络来源合成带引用的报告,但这些引用难以验证。现有方法或盲目信任模型自引,或依赖检索增强生成(RAG)却无法验证源内容的可访问性、相关性与事实一致性。本文提出首个可复现的引用评估框架,利用AST解析器大规模提取并评估大模型生成的Markdown报告中的内联引用。该框架不孤立验证陈述,而是通过实际检索被引内容,使人工或模型评估者可逐条比对引用与原始来源。评估涵盖三个维度:(1) Link Works验证网址可访问性,(2) Relevant Content衡量主题一致性,(3) Fact Check基于源内容验证事实准确性。我们在三个维度上对14个闭源与开源大模型进行评测,采用经人类评审校准的评分器。结果显示,即使最强模型仍保持链接有效性高于94%、相关性高于80%,但事实准确性仅为39%-77%;且不足一半开源模型能在单次调用中成功生成带引用报告。在研究深度的消融实验中,当工具调用数从2增至150时,两个前沿模型的事实准确率平均下降约42%,表明更多检索并未带来更高引用准确性。该结果揭示了表面引用质量与真实可靠性的关键脱节,本框架为评估此脱节提供了基础设施。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Large language models (LLMs) power deep research agents that synthesize information from hundreds of web sources into cited reports, yet these citations cannot be reliably verified. Current approaches either trust models to self-cite accurately, risking bias, or employ retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) that does not validate source accessibility, relevance, or factual consistency. We introduce the first source attribution evaluation framework that uses a reproducible AST parser to extract and evaluate inline citations from LLM-generated Markdown reports at scale. Unlike methods that verify claims in isolation, our framework closes the loop by retrieving the actual cited content, enabling human or model evaluators to judge each citation against its source. Citations are evaluated along three dimensions. (1) Link Works verifies URL accessibility, (2) Relevant Content measures topical alignment, and (3) Fact Check validates factual accuracy against source content. We benchmark 14 closed-source and open-source LLMs across three evaluation dimensions using rubric-based LLM-as-a-judge evaluators calibrated through human review. Our results reveal that even the strongest frontier models maintain link validity above 94% and relevance above 80%, yet achieve only 39-77% factual accuracy, while fewer than half of open-source models successfully generate cited reports in a one-shot setting. Ablation studies on research depth show that Fact Check accuracy drops by approximately 42% on average across two frontier models as tool calls scale from 2 to 150, demonstrating that more retrieval does not produce more accurate citations. These findings reveal a critical disconnect between surface-level citation quality and factual reliability, and our framework provides the evaluation infrastructure to assess the disconnect.
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