DRAGged into Conflicts: Detecting and Addressing Conflicting Sources in
  Search-Augmented LLMs
Authors: name: Arie Cattan; name: Alon Jacovi; name: Ori Ram; name: Jonathan Herzig; name: Roee Aharoni; name: Sasha Goldshtein; name: Eran Ofek; name: Idan Szpektor; name: Avi Caciularu
Published: 2025-06-10 06:52:57

Abstract: Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) is a commonly used approach for
enhancing large language models (LLMs) with relevant and up-to-date
information. However, the retrieved sources can often contain conflicting
information and it remains unclear how models should address such
discrepancies. In this work, we first propose a novel taxonomy of knowledge
conflict types in RAG, along with the desired model behavior for each type. We
then introduce CONFLICTS, a high-quality benchmark with expert annotations of
conflict types in a realistic RAG setting. CONFLICTS is the first benchmark
that enables tracking progress on how models address a wide range of knowledge
conflicts. We conduct extensive experiments on this benchmark, showing that
LLMs often struggle to appropriately resolve conflicts between sources. While
prompting LLMs to explicitly reason about the potential conflict in the
retrieved documents significantly improves the quality and appropriateness of
their responses, substantial room for improvement in future research remains.