Orchestration
What is AI answer verification?
Verification checks an answer against something other than the model that produced it. Why independence is the whole point, and what a self-check is really worth.
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Independence is the whole idea
If a model invents a fact because of something in its training, asking that model whether the fact is true consults the same source that invented it. The check and the error have a common cause, so the check passes.
A useful verifier changes something. A different model, a search against real documents, a compiler, a test suite, a schema validator. The more different the checker is from the generator, the more it can catch.
Kinds of verification, weakest to strongest
Self-review: the model rereads its answer. Cheap, and catches mostly formatting and internal contradictions. Cross-model review: a different model checks. Better, and catches errors specific to the first. Retrieval: the claim is checked against retrieved documents. Strong for factual claims. Execution: the code runs, the schema validates, the tests pass. Strongest, and only available where the answer is executable.
The pattern is that strength tracks independence from the model, and availability runs the other way — the strongest checks only exist for some kinds of work.
Verification and repair
A verifier that only reports a problem leaves you where you started. In practice verification is usually paired with repair: the failure and its reason go back to a model, which produces a corrected answer, which is checked again.
That loop needs a limit. Without one, a model that cannot fix the problem will keep producing variations of the same wrong answer at full price.
Questions people ask
- Does asking a model to double-check help?
- A little, and mostly for internal inconsistency rather than factual error. It is the weakest form of verification and the easiest to over-trust.
- Is retrieval verification the same as RAG?
- They use the same machinery in opposite directions. RAG retrieves before generating, to inform the answer. Retrieval verification retrieves after, to check it.
- How many repair attempts are sensible?
- One or two. If a model has not fixed it by the second attempt, further attempts usually produce restatements of the same error, and a person should look.
Try it rather than read about it
Verification and repair are two of ClawAI’s 9 orchestration modes, and both are metered per attempt so a repair loop cannot run up an invisible bill.