RAPTOR Recursive Abstractive Processing for Tree-Organized Retrieval
A new information retrieval paper was published recently, RAPTOR (Recursive Abstractive Processing for Tree-Organized Retrieval) represents a leap forward in the domain of retrieval-augmented language models. Developed by a team from Stanford University, RAPTOR addresses the critical limitation of existing models that struggle with incorporating comprehensive document context during retrieval, thus hindering their ability to adapt to new information and access detailed knowledge. RAPTOR introduces a novel method that recursively embeds, clusters, and summarizes text chunks, constructing a hierarchical tree that captures information at various levels of abstraction. This tree structure, rich in layered summaries, allows the model to retrieve information that spans across a document efficiently, ensuring that even complex, multi-step reasoning tasks benefit from a holistic understanding of the content. The paper summarizes it thus: ...