Utilizing Word Embeddings for Term Matching in Question Answering Systems

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon:

• program instructions to receive, by a question answering (QA) system, an input question asked by a user, wherein the QA system is a computer system configured to answer input questions utilizing a plurality of source documents;
• program instructions to generate, by the QA system, a plurality of vectors including a first vector representation of a term in the input question and a second vector representation of a term in a source document of the plurality of source documents, wherein the first vector representation and the second vector representation are generated by combining respective pluralities of dimensions for the first vector representation and the second vector representation to form multi-dimension vectors;
• program instructions to provide, by the QA system, each dimension of each of the first vector representation and the second vector representation as input into a respective input node of an artificial neural network, wherein the artificial neural network is trained to identify pairs of similar vector dimensions;
• program instructions to determine, by the QA system, whether the source document is relevant to answering the input question based, at least in part, on:
• (i) an output generated by the artificial neural network based on the provided input, and (ii) additional outputs generated by the artificial neural network based on additional inputs, the additional inputs including respective dimensions of respective vector representations for respective input question terms and source document terms corresponding to each possible remaining combination of one input question term and one source document term;
• and
• program instructions to, in response to determining that the source document is relevant to answering the input question, generate, by the QA system, an answer to the input question utilizing the source document.

A question answering (QA) system configured to answer input questions utilizing a plurality of source documents, the QA system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a computer readable storage medium;
• wherein:
• the one or more processors are structured, located, connected and/or programmed to run program instructions stored on the computer readable storage medium;
• and
• the stored program instructions include:
• program instructions to receive, by the QA system, an input question asked by a user;
• program instructions to generate, by the QA system, a plurality of vectors including a first vector representation of a term in the input question and a second vector representation of a term in a source document of the plurality of source documents, wherein the first vector representation and the second vector representation are generated by combining respective pluralities of dimensions for the first vector representation and the second vector representation to form multi-dimension vectors;
• program instructions to provide, by the QA system, each dimension of each of the first vector representation and the second vector representation as input into a respective input node of an artificial neural network, wherein the artificial neural network is trained to identify pairs of similar vector dimensions;
• program instructions to determine, by the QA system, whether the source document is relevant to answering the input question based, at least in part, on:
• (i) an output generated by the artificial neural network based on the provided input, and (ii) additional outputs generated by the artificial neural network based on additional inputs, the additional inputs including respective dimensions of respective vector representations for respective input question terms and source document terms corresponding to each possible remaining combination of one input question term and one source document term;
• and
• program instructions to, in response to determining that the source document is relevant to answering the input question, generate, by the QA system, an answer to the input question utilizing the source document.