Revealing the Fundamental Limits of Embedding-Based Retrieval

Theoretical Limits of Embedding-Based Retrieval: Why Even State-of-the-Art Models Fail on Simple Tasks Some retrieval tasks cannot be solved—even with the best embedding models and unlimited data. This isn’t a technical limitation but a fundamental mathematical constraint. Have you ever wondered why sometimes even the most advanced search engines fail to find documents you know exist? Or why two seemingly related documents never appear together in search results? The answer might not lie in the algorithms but in the theoretical limitations of embedding-based retrieval technology. Recent research from Google DeepMind has revealed fundamental constraints in vector embedding-based retrieval systems. The …