In a multi-agent research system, two web search subagents return different values for the same quantity: one retrieved source puts the sector's installed capacity at 4.2 gigawatts and another puts it at 6.9 gigawatts. The synthesis subagent silently selects one value and the report presents it as settled. A quality review of 40 reports finds 17 in which a quantity that the retrieved sources disagreed about was rendered as a single uncontested figure, and two clients have since queried a number that the desk could not defend. Which change most effectively addresses this?
- AInstruct the synthesis subagent to prefer the most recently published source whenever two retrieved figures for the same quantity differ, and to discard the older value at the point where it detects the conflict.
- BAsk the synthesis subagent to attach a self-reported confidence score to each figure it emits, so that a reader can judge for themselves which of the two retrieved values is more likely to be the accurate one.
- CAdd a dedicated fact-check subagent that re-runs a web search for every numeric claim in the finished draft and replaces any figure that it cannot immediately reproduce from a freshly retrieved source.
- DExtend the synthesis contract so that when sources disagree on the same quantity the aggregated record retains each value with its own source, and the report renders the disagreement explicitly beside the claim. Correct
Why A is wrong: It is tempting because recency is often a reasonable tie-break, but it still resolves the conflict invisibly and can be wrong, since the newer source may measure a different scope or restate an older estimate.
Why B is wrong: It is tempting because a score looks like an uncertainty signal, but a self-reported number is not calibrated against the evidence and it still hides the second value, which is the fact the reader actually needs.
Why C is wrong: It is tempting because verification sounds strictly safer, but it is over-engineered relative to the evidence and re-introduces the same defect, since the checker also picks one figure and discards the disagreement.
Why D is correct: Correct: the fault is that a real conflict in the evidence is collapsed before the reader sees it, so the fix is to make conflict a first-class part of the record and render it rather than resolve it silently.