Neural retrieval models have superseded classic bag-of-words methods such as BM25 as the retrieval framework of choice. However, neural systems lack the interpretability of bag-of-words models; it is not trivial to connect a query change to a change in the latent space that ultimately determines the retrieval results. To shed light on this embedding space, we learn a "query decoder" that, given a latent representation of a neural search engine, generates the corresponding query. We show that it is possible to decode a meaningful query from its latent representation and, when moving in the right direction in latent space, to decode a query that retrieves the relevant paragraph. In particular, the query decoder can be useful to understand "what should have been asked" to retrieve a particular paragraph from the collection. We employ the query decoder to generate a large synthetic dataset of query reformulations for MSMarco, leading to improved retrieval performance. On this data, we train a pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF) T5 model for the application of query suggestion that outperforms both query reformulation and PRF information retrieval baselines.

Decoding a Neural Retriever's Latent Space for Query Suggestion

Large language models can produce fluent dialogue but often hallucinate factual inaccuracies. While retrieval-augmented models help alleviate this issue, they still face a difficult challenge of both reasoning to provide correct knowledge and generating conversation simultaneously. In this work, we propose a modular model, Knowledge to Response (K2R), for incorporating knowledge into conversational agents, which breaks down this problem into two easier steps. K2R first generates a knowledge sequence, given a dialogue context, as an intermediate step. After this "reasoning step", the model then attends to its own generated knowledge sequence, as well as the dialogue context, to produce a final response. In detailed experiments, we find that such a model hallucinates less in knowledge-grounded dialogue tasks,  and has advantages in terms of interpretability and modularity. In particular, it can be used to fuse QA and dialogue systems together to enable dialogue agents to give knowledgeable answers, or QA models to give conversational responses in a zero-shot setting.

Reason first, then respond: Modular Generation for Knowledge-infused Dialogue

Large language models can produce fluent dialogue but often hallucinate factual inaccuracies. While retrieval-augmented models help alleviate this issue, they still face a difficult challenge of both reasoning to provide correct knowledge and generating conversation simultaneously. In this work, we propose a modular model, Knowledge to Response (K2R), for incorporating knowledge into conversational agents, which breaks down this problem into two easier steps. K2R first generates a knowledge sequence, given a dialogue context, as an intermediate step. After this "reasoning step", the model then attends to its own generated knowledge sequence, as well as the dialogue context, to produce a final response. In detailed experiments, we find that such a model hallucinates less in knowledge-grounded dialogue tasks, and has advantages in terms of interpretability and modularity. In particular, it can be used to fuse QA and dialogue systems together to enable dialogue agents to give knowledgeable answers, or QA models to give conversational responses in a zero-shot setting.

**Topics:** Commonsense Reasoning 
Dialogue and Interactive Systems 
Dialogue and Interactive Systems (TACL) 
Efficient Methods for NLP 
Speech, Vision, Robotics, Multimodal Grounding 
Ethics 
Information Extraction 
Interpretability, Interactivity and Analysis of Models for NLP 
Language Modeling and Analysis of Language Models

Poster Session 11

poster

## Welcome to EMNLP 2022!
I am delighted to welcome you to EMNLP 2022! I believe this conference has been complicated beyond any precedent. Over the past year, it’s been thrilling to see the organization team approach each new puzzle with creativity and enthusiasm. We hope that those participating in Abu Dhabi as well as those joining remotely will leave the conference feeling newly inspired by the program and newly connected to our ever-growing community. Following EMNLP 2021 and major NLP conferences since, EMNLP 2022 is “hybrid,” serving both virtual and in-person participants.

Our key innovations for EMNLP 2022 include:

* EMNLP 2022 is “hybrid” in a second sense, as well: we allowed both direct and rolling review paper submissions, building on the pilot experiment of EMNLP 2021, which considered a small number of ARR submissions. 
* Familiar from NAACL but new to EMNLP, we’ve added an industry track.
* During the conference, “portals” will link virtual poster sessions to in-person conference participants during poster sessions each day.
* The first ACL-family conference in the United Arab Emirates.

 *Message from Noah A. Smith, University of Washington and Allen Institute for AI, Seattle, Washington, USA* 
***EMNLP 2022 General Chair***
 
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EMNLP 2022

Welcome!
EMNLP 2022 will take place in Abu Dhabi from December 7th to December 11th, 2022. And it will be held in hybrid mode, both online and offline.

[![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/26c36e70b5f083b72ae632cbdcc2b5b1.png)](https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/play/mPQzZnOo4uaXvQNGxzaRRUS1Zi2DSmwoH9I0acvMbFGBnTB005SX3NFo_N5y06eZGHBV-5LWUISxbrQ8.Vl3moOIngCDN_-pI?autoplay=true&startTime=1670471631000) 

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**Chair:** Marc-Alexandre Côté **Organizers:** Prasanna Parthasarathi, Koustuv Sinha, Kalesha Bullard,Chinnadhurai Sankar, Adina Williams, Marc-Alexandre Côté, Sarath Chandar and Joelle Pineau Please visit our [**website**](https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~pparth2/nilli_workshop_2022/) for more information and detailed schedule.

**RocketChat for this workshop:** https://emnlp2022.rocket.chat/channel/workshop-20-nilli

Leonard Adolphs

3

SHORT BIO

Presentations

Decoding a Neural Retriever's Latent Space for Query Suggestion

Reason first, then respond: Modular Generation for Knowledge-infused Dialogue

Reason first, then respond: Modular Generation for Knowledge-infused Dialogue

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