Dual encoder retrieval efficiency with parameter sharing in projection layer

A method implementing an asymmetric dual encoder, the method comprising:

• receiving a first input by a first token embedding section and a second input by a second token embedding section, the first and second token embedding sections forming a token embedding layer of the asymmetric dual encoder and being distinctly parameterized;
• concurrently generating first token embeddings by the first token embedding section and second token embeddings by the second token embedding section;
• receiving the first token embedding at a first encoder section and receiving the second token embeddings at a second encoder section, the first and second encoder sections forming an encoder layer section of the asymmetric dual encoder and being distinctly parameterized;
• concurrently generating first encodings by the first encoder section and second encodings by the second encoder section;
• receiving, at a shared projection layer of the asymmetric dual encoder, the first and second encodings;
• generating, by the shared projection layer, a set of projections according to the first and second encodings;
• and
• generating, in an embedding space based on the set of projections, a question embedding and an answer embedding, the question and answer embeddings for use in identifying a set of candidate answers to an input answer.

A non-transitory recording medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, implementing an asymmetric dual encoder comprising:

• a token embedder layer section having a first token embedding section associated with a first input and a second token embedding section associated with a second input, wherein the first and second token embedding sections are distinctly parameterized;
• an encoder layer section having a first encoder section configured to receive token embeddings from the first token embedding section and a second encoder section configured to receive token embeddings from the second token embedding section, wherein the first and second encoder sections are distinctly parameterized;
• a projection layer configured to receive encodings from both the first and second encoder sections and to generate a set of projections, wherein the projection layer is shared by the asymmetric dual encoder;
• and
• an embedding space configured, based on the set of projections, to generate a question embedding and an answer embedding, the question and answer embeddings for use in identifying a set of candidate answers to an input answer.