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<p>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 50–70% 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.</p>

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Evaluating search engines and large language models for answering health questions

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年3月10日

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  • Marcos Fernández-Pichel,
  • Juan C. Pichel,
  • David E. Losada

摘要

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 50–70% 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.