FACT-AUDIT: An Adaptive Multi-Agent Framework for Dynamic Fact-Checking Evaluation of Large Language Models
Paper · 2025 · Hongzhan Lin, Yang Deng, Yuxuan Gu et al.
Summary
Fact-checking ability in LLMs is usually measured with fixed, human-annotated benchmarks scored by classification accuracy. These benchmarks are costly to extend, can leak into training data, and ignore whether a model can explain its verdict. FACT-AUDIT replaces them with an automated, model-centric audit. The authors treat test creation as importance sampling. Rather than drawing claims evenly from real-world knowledge, the framework steers generation toward regions where the target model is likely to fail.
Several LLM-powered agents cooperate in this process. One designs a taxonomy of fact-checking scenarios, and another writes test claims with auxiliary evidence. A tool-using inspector filters these claims for quality, and a prober iteratively builds harder, unseen variants from the model's responses. The audited LLM must return both a verdict and a justification, and the taxonomy is revised after every round.
Across 13 recent LLMs, the framework separates models clearly and reveals a notable gap between closed and open-source systems. It offers a reusable route to trustworthiness auditing that avoids the saturation of static benchmarks.
Key points
- The three-stage loop runs Prototype Emulation, then Fact Verification with justification, then Adaptive Updating of the scenario taxonomy.
- Five agent roles are named: Appraiser (taxonomy), Inquirer (test generation), Quality Inspector (tool-assisted validation), Prober (iterative hard cases), and a memory pool that drives updates.
- The initial taxonomy covers three classic fact-checking objects: complex claims, fake news, and social rumors. Verdict labels are Factual, Non-Factual, and Not Enough Information.
- The evaluation covers 13 state-of-the-art LLMs. Code is released at github.com/DanielLin97/FACT-AUDIT.
- The authors list three limitations: residual bias in the agent controller, no access to fresh knowledge (RAG is planned), and no built-in mechanism for improving the audited models (preference optimization is planned).
Fields, topics and concepts
📚 Shelves 6The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Computer Science · 18,614 worksArtificial Intelligence · 17,965 worksArts and Humanities · 17,450 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 17,296 worksSocial Sciences · 1,954 worksSociology and Political Science · 626 works
Cite
Cite as Hongzhan Lin, Yang Deng, Yuxuan Gu, Wenxuan Zhang, Jing Ma, See-Kiong Ng and Tat-Seng Chua. 2025. FACT-AUDIT: An Adaptive Multi-Agent Framework for Dynamic Fact-Checking Evaluation of Large Language Models. Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers).
@inproceedings{lin2025fact,
title = {{FACT-AUDIT: An Adaptive Multi-Agent Framework for Dynamic Fact-Checking Evaluation of Large Language Models}},
author = {Hongzhan Lin, Yang Deng, Yuxuan Gu, Wenxuan Zhang, Jing Ma, See-Kiong Ng and Tat-Seng Chua},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.17},
url = {https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.17}
}References
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