How to Compare Things Properly? A Study of Argument Relevance in Comparative Question Answering.

Abstract

Comparative Question Answering (CQA) lies at the intersection of Question Answering, Argument Mining, and Summarization. It poses unique challenges due to the inherently subjective nature of many questions and the need to integrate diverse perspectives. Although the CQA task can be addressed using recently emerged instruction-following Large Language Models (LLMs), challenges such as hallucinations in their outputs and the lack of transparent argument provenance remain significant limitations. To address these challenges, we construct a manually curated dataset comprising arguments annotated with their relevance. These arguments are further used to answer comparative questions, enabling precise traceability and faithfulness. Furthermore, we define explicit criteria for an “ideal” comparison and introduce a benchmark for evaluating the outputs of various Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) models with respect to argument relevance. All code and data are publicly released to support further research.