Luna: A Lightweight Evaluation Model to Catch Language Model Hallucinations with High Accuracy and Low Cost

Abstract

Retriever-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems have become pivotal in enhancing the capabilities of language models by incorporating external knowledge retrieval mechanisms. However, a significant challenge in deploying these systems in industry applications is the detection and mitigation of hallucinations - instances where the model generates information that is not grounded in the retrieved context. Addressing this issue is crucial for ensuring the reliability and accuracy of responses generated by large language models (LLMs) in industry settings. Current hallucination detection techniques fail to deliver accuracy, low latency, and low cost simultaneously. We introduce Luna: a DeBERTA-large encoder, fine-tuned for hallucination detection in RAG settings. We demonstrate that Luna outperforms GPT-3.5 and commercial evaluation frameworks on the hallucination detection task, with 97% and 91% reduction in cost and latency, respectively. Luna’s generalization capacity across multiple industry verticals and out-of-domain data makes it a strong candidate for guardrailing industry LLM applications.