Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Stanford University

Abstract: Why Should You Trust Answers from the Web?

In order to trust answers obtained from arbitrary applications, users will need to understand how answers were obtained and what information they depended upon. Particularly in web applications that may use question answering systems that may be heuristic or incomplete or data that is either of unknown origin or may be out of date, it becomes more important to have information about how answers were obtained. We propose that future web systems will return answers augmented with Meta information about how answers were obtained. In this position paper, we explore an approach that can improve trust in answers generated from web applications by making the answer process more transparent. The added information is aimed to provide users (humans or agents) with answers to questions of trust, reliability, recency, and applicability.

Deborah L. McGuinness. Why Should You Trust Answers from the Web? In Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Information Sciences, Web Intelligence and Security Track, Salt Lake City, Utah, July 2005. See abstract for details.

The word version is available. This paper accompanies an invited talk.

Return to Selected Papers of Deborah L. McGuinness.