A knowledge attribution system for providing proof-of-answer for generative artificial intelligence output, comprising:
- a control server having a computer storage device, operably connected to a user device;
- a knowledge base stored using the computer storage device, the knowledge base comprising one or more source documents, each source document having one or more document segments;
- a knowledge database stored using the computer storage device, the knowledge database comprising a plurality of knowledge elements, each knowledge element representing one of the document segments of each source document, each knowledge element having attribution metadata associating the knowledge element with the originating document segment, the attribution metadata further comprises a source attribution identifier and a source position identifier, the source attribution identifier references the source document from which the knowledge element is derived, and the source position identifier references the corresponding document segment of the knowledge element, the knowledge database is configured as a segregated database comprising a plurality of partitions, with each of the partitions containing the knowledge elements of one of the source documents, and each document segment of each source document has text content, the text content of each document segment is represented in the corresponding knowledge element as an encoded text portion, the encoded text portion corresponding to a vector representation which captures semantic and contextual meaning present within the text content in order to facilitate the similarity search which identifies the response candidate elements;
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- a knowledge attribution engine executed by the control server, the knowledge attribution engine having a response generation module, the knowledge attribution engine is adapted to receive a user query entered via the user device, conduct a similarity search of the knowledge database directed at the knowledge elements of one of the source documents via the corresponding partition, and retrieve one or more response candidate elements as search results, each response candidate element corresponding to one of the knowledge elements which are relevant to the user query, the knowledge attribution engine is further adapted to generate an augmented query which instructs the response generation module to produce a response generation output utilizing at least one of the response candidate elements, wherein the augmented query includes the text content of each response candidate element, and further includes a generative restriction command instructing the response generation module to produce the generated response text only using the text content of the response candidate elements, the response generation output comprising a generated response text which answers the user query, and the response generation output further includes the attribution metadata of each response candidate element which is utilized to produce the generated response text, the knowledge attribution engine is further adapted to generate and display a a proof of answer image of each of the utilized response candidate elements using the attribution metadata within the response generation output, to serve as proof-of-answer for the generated response text, wherein the proof of answer image comprises a screenshot of each of the document segments of the source document which are identified by the attribution metadata of the response text, and wherein the generated response text and the knowledge validation image are displayed via the user device.