DiaLong: Benchmarking Reminiscence in Long-Context Dialogues

How well can transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) retain and recall memories in long contexts of dialogue? LLMs are known to forget long-range factual information in their context, yet the field lacks a comprehensive benchmark to quantitatively assess these shortcomings. We present DiaLong, a long-context dialogue dataset and accompanying memory task that standardizes evaluation in this space. It consists of 100 unique conversations created by humans and then augmented with LLMs, extending beyond lengths found in existing datasets. Our selected memory task is fact recall: classify 40 candidate facts about a dialogue as true or false. This task directly probes the model's ability to actively retain and retrieve information, serving as a critical measure of memory within extended conversational contexts. In testing both the latest LLMs and proposed memory enhancements on DiaLong, we demonstrate that more work needs to be done to enable LLMs with better memory performance. By enhancing memory capabilities, LLMs can improve in maintaining coherence, relevance, and human-like interaction over extended conversation. Improving these capabilities will help LLMs fulfill diverse user needs and expectations in various conversational scenarios.