---
title: "Generating Facts From Opinions with Information Source Models"
authors:
  - "Martin Thost"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1989/85"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1989/0085.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Eleventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1989
pages: "531-535"
track: "Cognitive Models"
keywords:
---

# Generating Facts From Opinions with Information Source Models

Martin Thost

*Proceedings of the Eleventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 531-535.

## Abstract

This paper describes an attempt to model the method of generating a fact from the opinions of other persons or of institutions as a process which is based on knowledge about these opinion sources. AITechniques of reasoning, such as rule based deduction, require an input of facts with a definite truth value. In domains like economics or administration, decisions are often based on a set of diverging ·subjective opinions when the fact which is needed is not available. The credibility of an opinion is considered dependent on a number of information source attributes producing the opinion as competence and goals. A model of the information source containing these attributes is used as a knowledge structure in a cyclical process of subsequent combination, doubt and reinterpretation of single opinions. Information Source Models can be used like User Models to represent an intelligent system's knowledge about its social context.