Databricks-Generative-AI-Engineer-Associate Databricks Certified Generative AI Engineer Associate Questions and Answers

Problem Context: After receiving positive feedback for the RAG application prototype, the next step is to formally evaluate the system to pinpoint areas for improvement.

Explanation of Options:

Option A: While cosine similarity scores are useful, they primarily measure similarity rather than the overall performance of an RAG system.

Option B: This option provides a systematic approach to evaluation by testing both retrieval and generation components separately. This allows for targeted improvements and a clear understanding of each component's performance, using MLflow’s metrics for a structured and standardized assessment.

Option C: Benchmarking multiple LLMs does not focus on evaluating the existing system’s components but rather on comparing different models.

Option D: Using an LLM as a judge is subjective and less reliable for systematic performance evaluation.

OptionBis the most comprehensive and structured approach, facilitating precise evaluations and improvements on specific components of the RAG system.

To understand how a typical RAG-enabled customer-facing chatbot processes a user's question, let’s go through the correct sequence as depicted in the diagram and explained in option A:

Embedding Model (1):The first step involves the user's question being processed through an embedding model. This model converts the text into a vector format that numerically represents the text. This step is essential for allowing the subsequent vector search to operate effectively.

Vector Search (2):The vectors generated by the embedding model are then used in a vector search mechanism. This search identifies the most relevant documents or previously answered questions that are stored in a vector format in a database.

Context-Augmented Prompt (3):The information retrieved from the vector search is used to create a context-augmented prompt. This step involves enhancing the basic user query with additional relevant information gathered to ensure the generated response is as accurate and informative as possible.

Response-Generating LLM (4):Finally, the context-augmented prompt is fed into a response-generating large language model (LLM). This LLM uses the prompt to generate a coherent and contextually appropriate answer, which is then delivered as the final output to the user.

Why Other Options Are Less Suitable:

B, C, D: These options suggest incorrect sequences that do not align with how a RAG system typically processes queries. They misplace the role of embedding models, vector search, and response generation in an order that would not facilitate effective information retrieval and response generation.

Thus, the correct sequence isembedding model, vector search, context-augmented prompt, response-generating LLM, which is option A.

In the context of ensuring that outputs are relevant to financial news, increasing compute power (option B) does not directly improve therelevanceof the LLM-generated outputs. Here’s why:

Compute Power and Relevancy:Increasing compute power can help the model process inputs faster, but it does not inherently improve therelevanceof the answers. Relevancy depends on the data sources, the retrieval method, and the filtering mechanisms in place, not on how quickly the model processes the query.

What Actually Helps with Relevance:Other methods, like content filtering, guardrails, or manual review, can directly impact the relevance of the model’s responses by ensuring the model focuses on pertinent financial content. These methods help tailor the LLM’s responses to the financial domain and avoid irrelevant or harmful outputs.

Why Other Options Are More Relevant:

A (Comprehensive Guardrail Framework): This will ensure that the model avoids generating content that is irrelevant or inappropriate in the finance sector.

C (Profanity Filter): While not directly related to financial relevancy, ensuring the output is clean and professional is still important in maintaining the quality of responses.

D (Manual Review): Incorporating human oversight to catch and correct issues with the LLM’s output ensures the final answers are aligned with financial content expectations.

Thus, increasing compute power does not help with ensuring the outputs are more relevant to financial news, making option B the correct answer.

In a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) application built to answer questions about internal documents, especially when the dataset contains irrelevant content, it's crucial to guide the system to focus on the right information. The best way to achieve this is byincluding a clear instruction in the system prompt(option C).

System Prompt as Guidance:The system prompt is an effective way to instruct the LLM to limit its focus to SnoPen AI-related content. By clearly specifying that the model should avoid answering questions unrelated to SnoPen AI, you add an additional layer of control that helps the model stay on-topic, even if irrelevant content is present in the dataset.

Why This Approach Works:The prompt acts as a guiding principle for the model, narrowing its focus to specific domains. This prevents the model from generating answers based on irrelevant content, such as advertisements or news unrelated to SnoPen AI.

Why Other Options Are Less Suitable:

A (Keep All Articles): Retaining all content, including irrelevant materials, without any filtering makes the system prone to generating answers based on unwanted data.

B (Include in the System Prompt about SnoPen AI): This option doesn’t address irrelevant content directly, and without filtering, the model might still retrieve and use irrelevant data.

D (Consolidating Documents into a Single Chunk): Grouping documents into a single chunk makes the retrieval process less efficient and won’t help filter out irrelevant content effectively.

Therefore, instructing the system in the prompt not to answer questions unrelated to SnoPen AI (option C) is the best approach to ensure the system filters out irrelevant information.

The task is to deploy an LLM application using Foundation Model APIs in a production environment while adhering to security best practices. Authentication is critical for securing access to Databricks resources, such as the Foundation Model API. Let’s evaluate the options based on Databricks’ security guidelines for production scenarios.

Option A: Use an access token belonging to service principals

Service principals are non-human identities designed for automated workflows and applications in Databricks. Using an access token tied to a service principal ensures that the authentication is scoped to the application, follows least-privilege principles (via role-based access control), and avoids reliance on individual user credentials. This is a security best practice for production deployments.

Databricks Reference:"For production applications, use service principals with access tokens to authenticate securely, avoiding user-specific credentials"("Databricks Security Best Practices," 2023). Additionally, the "Foundation Model API Documentation" states:"Service principal tokens are recommended for programmatic access to Foundation Model APIs."

Option B: Use a frequently rotated access token belonging to either a workspace user or a service principal

Frequent rotation enhances security by limiting token exposure, but tying the token to a workspace user introduces risks (e.g., user account changes, broader permissions). Including both user and service principal options dilutes the focus on application-specific security, making this less ideal than a service-principal-only approach. It also adds operational overhead without clear benefits over Option A.

Databricks Reference:"While token rotation is a good practice, service principals are preferred over user accounts for application authentication"("Managing Tokens in Databricks," 2023).

Option C: Use OAuth machine-to-machine authentication

OAuth M2M (e.g., client credentials flow) is a secure method for application-to-service communication, often using service principals under the hood. However, Databricks’ Foundation Model API primarily supports personal access tokens (PATs) or service principal tokens over full OAuth flows for simplicity in production setups. OAuth M2M adds complexity (e.g., managing refresh tokens) without a clear advantage in this context.

Databricks Reference:"OAuth is supported in Databricks, but service principal tokens are simpler and sufficient for most API-based workloads"("Databricks Authentication Guide," 2023).

Option D: Use an access token belonging to any workspace user

Using a user’s access token ties the application to an individual’s identity, violating security best practices. It risks exposure if the user leaves, changes roles, or has overly broad permissions, and it’s not scalable or auditable for production.

Databricks Reference:"Avoid using personal user tokens for production applications due to security and governance concerns"("Databricks Security Best Practices," 2023).

Conclusion: Option A is the best choice, as it uses a service principal’s access token, aligning with Databricks’ security best practices for production LLM applications. It ensures secure, application-specific authentication with minimal complexity, as explicitly recommended for Foundation Model API deployments.

The LLM classifies mushroom species accurately but includes unwanted reasoning text, and the engineer wants only the label. Let’s assess how to control output format effectively.

Option A: Use few shot prompting to instruct the model on expected output format

Few-shot prompting provides examples (e.g., input: description, output: label). It can work but requires crafting multiple examples, which is effort-intensive and less direct than a clear instruction.

Databricks Reference:"Few-shot prompting guides LLMs via examples, effective for format control but requires careful design"("Generative AI Cookbook").

Option B: Use zero shot prompting to instruct the model on expected output format

Zero-shot prompting relies on a single instruction (e.g., “Return only the label”) without examples. It’s simpler than few-shot but may not consistently enforce succinctness if the LLM’s default behavior is verbose.

Databricks Reference:"Zero-shot prompting can specify output but may lack precision without examples"("Building LLM Applications with Databricks").

Option C: Use zero shot chain-of-thought prompting to prevent a verbose output format

Chain-of-Thought (CoT) encourages step-by-step reasoning, which increases verbosity—opposite to the desired outcome. This contradicts the goal of label-only output.

Databricks Reference:"CoT prompting enhances reasoning but often results in detailed responses"("Databricks Generative AI Engineer Guide").

Option D: Use a system prompt to instruct the model to be succinct in its answer

A system prompt (e.g., “Respond with only the species label, no additional text”) sets a global instruction for the LLM’s behavior. It’s direct, reusable, and effective for controlling output style across queries.

Databricks Reference:"System prompts define LLM behavior consistently, ideal for enforcing concise outputs"("Generative AI Cookbook," 2023).

Conclusion: Option D is the most effective and straightforward action, using a system prompt to enforce succinct, label-only responses, aligning with Databricks’ best practices for output control.

Problem Context: The engineer needs an efficient way to store chunks of unstructured documents to facilitate easy retrieval and search. The current dataframe consists of document filenames and associated text chunks.

Explanation of Options:

Option A: Splitting into train and test sets is more relevant for model training scenarios and not directly applicable to storage for retrieval in a Vector Search index.

Option B: Flattening the dataframe such that each row contains a single chunk with a unique identifier is the most performant for storage and retrieval. This structure aligns well with how data is indexed and queried in vector search applications, making it easier to retrieve specific chunks efficiently.

Option C: Creating a unique identifier for each document only does not address the need to access individual chunks efficiently, which is critical in a Vector Search application.

Option D: Storing each chunk as an independent JSON file creates unnecessary overhead and complexity in managing and querying large volumes of files.

OptionBis the most efficient and practical approach, allowing for streamlined indexing and retrieval processes in a Delta table environment, fitting the requirements of a Vector Search index.

 Context: The goal is to improve the online customer experience in a restaurant by handling common inquiries about bookings, minimizing escalations, and maintaining personalized interactions.

 Explanation of Options:

Option A: Grouping and summarizing chat logs by user could provide insights into customer interactions but does not directly address the task of handling booking inquiries or minimizing escalations.

Option B: Using chat logs to generate interactive buttons for booking details directly supports the goal of facilitating online bookings, minimizing the need for human intervention by providing clear, interactive options for customers to self-serve.

Option C: Classifying sentiment of customer reviews does not directly help with booking inquiries, although it might provide valuable feedback insights.

Option D: Providing cancellation options is helpful but narrowly focuses on one aspect of the booking process and doesn't support the broader goal of handling common inquiries about bookings.

Option Bbest supports the goal of improving online interactions by using chat logs to generate actionable items for customers, helping them complete booking tasks efficiently and reducing the need for human intervention.

Problem Context: The engineer needs to extract text from PDF documents, which may contain both text and images. The goal is to find a Python package that simplifies this task using the least amount of code.

Explanation of Options:

Option A: flask: Flask is a web framework for Python, not suitable for processing or extracting content from PDFs.

Option B: beautifulsoup: Beautiful Soup is designed for parsing HTML and XML documents, not PDFs.

Option C: unstructured: This Python package is specifically designed to work with unstructured data, including extracting text from PDFs. It provides functionalities to handle various types of content in documents with minimal coding, making it ideal for the task.

Option D: numpy: Numpy is a powerful library for numerical computing in Python and does not provide any tools for text extraction from PDFs.

Given the requirement,Option C(unstructured) is the most appropriate as it directly addresses the need to efficiently extract text from PDF documents with minimal code.

Addressing offensive or inflammatory outputs in a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system is critical for improving user experience and ensuring ethical AI deployment. Here's whyDis the most effective approach:

Manual data curation: The root cause of offensive outputs often comes from the underlying data used to train the model or populate the retrieval system. By manually curating the upstream data and conducting thorough reviews before the data is fed into the RAG system, the engineer can filter out harmful, offensive, or inappropriate content.

Improving data quality: Curating data ensures the system retrieves and generates responses from a high-quality, well-vetted dataset. This directly impacts the relevance and appropriateness of the outputs from the RAG system, preventing inflammatory content from being included in responses.

Effectiveness: This strategy directly tackles the problem at its source (the data) rather than just mitigating the consequences (such as informing users or restricting access). It ensures that the system consistently provides non-offensive, relevant information.

Other options, such as increasing the frequency of data updates or informing users about behavior expectations, may not directly mitigate the generation of inflammatory outputs.

 Problem Context: The Generative AI Engineer needs a model for a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) application that provides high-quality answers, where latency and throughput are not major concerns. The key factors areconfidentialityandsensitivityof the data, as well as the requirement for all processing to be confined to internal resources without external data transmission.

 Explanation of Options:

Option A: Dolly 1.5B: This model does not typically support RAG applications as it's more focused on image generation tasks.

Option B: OpenAI GPT-4: While GPT-4 is powerful for generating responses, its standard deployment involves cloud-based processing, which could violate the confidentiality requirements due to external data transmission.

Option C: BGE-large: The BGE (Big Green Engine) large model is a suitable choice if it is configured to operate on-premises or within a secure internal environment that meets regulatory requirements. Assuming this setup, BGE-large can provide high-quality answers while ensuring that data is not transmitted to third parties, thus aligning with the project's sensitivity and confidentiality needs.

Option D: Llama2-70B: Similar to GPT-4, unless specifically set up for on-premises use, it generally relies on cloud-based services, which might risk confidential data exposure.

Given the sensitivity and confidentiality concerns,BGE-largeis assumed to be configurable for secure internal use, making it the optimal choice for this scenario.

The task is to benchmark LLMs for text translation using an evaluation set with known high-quality examples, requiring a performant metric. Let’s evaluate the options.

Option A: ROUGE metric

ROUGE (Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation) measures overlap between generated and reference texts, primarily for summarization. It’s less suited for translation, where precision and word order matter more.

Databricks Reference:"ROUGE is commonly used for summarization, not translation evaluation"("Generative AI Cookbook," 2023).

Option B: BLEU metric

BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) evaluates translation quality by comparing n-gram overlap with reference translations, accounting for precision and brevity. It’s widely used, performant, and appropriate for this task.

Databricks Reference:"BLEU is a standard metric for evaluating machine translation, balancing accuracy and efficiency"("Building LLM Applications with Databricks").

Option C: NDCG metric

NDCG (Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain) assesses ranking quality, not text generation. It’s irrelevant for translation evaluation.

Databricks Reference:"NDCG is suited for ranking tasks, not generative output scoring"("Databricks Generative AI Engineer Guide").

Option D: RECALL metric

Recall measures retrieved relevant items but doesn’t evaluate translation quality (e.g., fluency, correctness). It’s incomplete for this use case.

Databricks Reference: No specific extract, but recall alone lacks the granularity of BLEU for text generation tasks.

Conclusion: Option B (BLEU) is the best metric for translation evaluation, offering a performant and standard approach, as endorsed by Databricks’ guidance on generative tasks.

In the context of designing a chatbot to engage users on a gaming platform,diversity of responses(option B) is a key metric to increase user engagement and retention. Here’s why:

Diverse and Engaging Interactions:A chatbot that provides varied and interesting responses will keep users engaged, especially inan interactive environment like a gaming platform. Gamers typically enjoy dynamic and evolving conversations, anddiversity of responseshelps prevent monotony, encouraging users to interact more frequently with the bot.

Increasing Retention:By offering different types of responses to similar queries, the chatbot can create a sense of novelty and excitement, which enhances the user’s experience and makes them more likely to return to the platform.

Why Other Options Are Less Effective:

A (Randomness): Random responses can be confusing or irrelevant, leading to frustration and reducing engagement.

C (Lack of Relevance): If responses are not relevant to the user’s queries, this will degrade the user experience and lead to disengagement.

D (Repetition of Responses): Repetitive responses can quickly bore users, making the chatbot feel uninteresting and reducing the likelihood of continued interaction.

Thus,diversity of responses(option B) is the most effective way to keep users engaged and retain them on the platform.

The task requires an LLM pipeline for multi-stage reasoning with external tools, necessitating planning, adaptability, and complex reasoning. Let’s evaluate the options based on Databricks’ recommendations for advanced LLM workflows.

Option A: Train the LLM to generate a single, comprehensive response without interacting with any external tools, relying solely on its pre-trained knowledge

This approach limits the LLM to its static knowledge base, excluding external tools and multi-stage reasoning. It can’t adapt or plan actions dynamically, failing the requirements.

Databricks Reference:"External tools enhance LLM capabilities beyond pre-trained knowledge"("Building LLM Applications with Databricks," 2023).

Option B: Implement a framework like ReAct which allows the LLM to generate reasoning traces and perform task-specific actions that leverage external tools if necessary

ReAct (Reasoning + Acting) combines reasoning traces (step-by-step logic) with actions (e.g., tool calls), enabling the LLM to plan, adapt, and execute complex tasks iteratively. This meets all requirements: multi-stage reasoning, tool use, and adaptability.

Databricks Reference:"Frameworks like ReAct enable LLMs to interleave reasoning and external tool interactions for complex problem-solving"("Generative AI Cookbook," 2023).

Option C: Encourage the LLM to make multiple API calls in sequence without planning or structuring the calls, allowing the LLM to decide when and how to use external tools spontaneously

Unstructured, spontaneous API calls lack planning and may lead to inefficient or incorrect tool usage. This doesn’t ensure effective multi-stage reasoning or adaptability.

Databricks Reference: Structured frameworks are preferred:"Ad-hoc tool calls can reduce reliability in complex tasks"("Building LLM-Powered Applications").

Option D: Use a Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting technique to guide the LLM through a series of reasoning steps, then manually input the results from external tools for the final answer

CoT improves reasoning but relies on manual tool interaction, breaking automation and adaptability. It’s not a scalable pipeline solution.

Databricks Reference:"Manual intervention is impractical for production LLM pipelines"("Databricks Generative AI Engineer Guide").

Conclusion: Option B (ReAct) is the best approach, as it integrates reasoning and tool use in a structured, adaptive framework, aligning with Databricks’ guidance for complex LLM workflows.

The most effective way to preprocess prompts using custom code is to write a custom model, such as anMLflow PyFunc model. Here’s a breakdown of why this is the correct approach:

MLflow PyFunc Models:MLflow is a widely used platform for managing the machine learning lifecycle, including experimentation, reproducibility, and deployment. APyFuncmodel is a generic Python function model that can implement custom logic, which includes preprocessing prompts.

Preprocessing Prompts:Preprocessing could include various tasks like cleaning up the user input, formatting it according to specific rules, or augmenting it with additional context before passing it to the LLM. Writing this preprocessing as part of a PyFunc model allows the custom code to be managed, tested, and deployed easily.

Modular and Reusable:By separating the preprocessing logic into a PyFunc model, the system becomes modular, making it easier to maintain and update without needing to modify the core LLM or retrain it.

Why Other Options Are Less Suitable:

A (Modify LLM’s Internal Architecture): Directly modifying the LLM's architecture is highly impractical and can disrupt the model’s performance. LLMs are typically treated as black-box models for tasks like prompt processing.

B (Avoid Custom Code): While it’s true that LLMs haven't been explicitly trained with preprocessed prompts, preprocessing can still improve clarity and alignment with desired input formats without confusing the model.

C (Postprocessing Outputs): While postprocessing the output can be useful, it doesn't address the need for clean and well-formatted inputs, which directly affect the quality of the model's responses.

Thus, using an MLflow PyFunc model allows for flexible and controlled preprocessing of prompts in a scalable way, making it the most effective method.