PACAR: Automated Fact-Checking with Planning and Customized Action Reasoning Using Large Language Models

Xiaoyan Zhao, Lingzhi Wang, Zhanghao Wang, Hong Cheng, Rui Zhang, Kam-Fai Wong


Abstract
In an era characterized by the rapid proliferation of information, the pervasive issues of misinformation and disinformation have significantly impacted numerous individuals. Consequently, the evaluation of information’s truthfulness and accuracy has garnered substantial attention among researchers. In this work, we present a novel fact-checking framework called PACAR, fact-checking based on planning and customized action reasoning using LLMs. It comprises four modules: a claim decomposer with self-reflection, an LLM-centric planner module, an executor for carrying out planned actions, and a verifier module that assesses veracity and generates explanations based on the overall reasoning process. Unlike previous work that employs single-path decision-making and single-step verdict prediction, PACAR focuses on the use of LLMs in dynamic planning and execution of actions. Furthermore, in contrast to previous work that relied primarily on general reasoning, we introduce tailored actions such as numerical reasoning and entity disambiguation to effectively address potential challenges in fact-checking. Our PACAR framework, incorporating LLM-centric planning along with customized action reasoning, significantly outperforms baseline methods across three datasets from different domains and with varying complexity levels. Additional experiments, including multidimensional and sliced observations, demonstrate the effectiveness of PACAR and offer valuable insights for the advancement of automated fact-checking.
Anthology ID:
2024.lrec-main.1099
Volume:
Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024)
Month:
May
Year:
2024
Address:
Torino, Italia
Editors:
Nicoletta Calzolari, Min-Yen Kan, Veronique Hoste, Alessandro Lenci, Sakriani Sakti, Nianwen Xue
Venues:
LREC | COLING
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA and ICCL
Note:
Pages:
12564–12573
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.1099
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Xiaoyan Zhao, Lingzhi Wang, Zhanghao Wang, Hong Cheng, Rui Zhang, and Kam-Fai Wong. 2024. PACAR: Automated Fact-Checking with Planning and Customized Action Reasoning Using Large Language Models. In Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024), pages 12564–12573, Torino, Italia. ELRA and ICCL.
Cite (Informal):
PACAR: Automated Fact-Checking with Planning and Customized Action Reasoning Using Large Language Models (Zhao et al., LREC-COLING 2024)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/nschneid-patch-2/2024.lrec-main.1099.pdf