SLM Meets LLM: Balancing Latency, Interpretability and Consistency in Hallucination Detection

Mengya Hu, Rui Xu, Deren Lei, Yaxi Li, Mingyu Wang, Emily Ching, Eslam Kamal, Alex Deng

Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are highly capable but face latency challenges in real-time applications, such as conducting online hallucination detection. To overcome this issue, we propose a novel framework that leverages a small language model (SLM) classifier for initial detection, followed by a LLM as constrained reasoner to generate detailed explanations for detected hallucinated content. This study optimizes the real-time interpretable hallucination detection by introducing effective prompting techniques that align LLM-generated explanations with SLM decisions. Empirical experiment results demonstrate its effectiveness, thereby enhancing the overall user experience.