Automated fact checking using iterative knowledge base querying

Abstract

An embodiment includes decomposing a natural language assertion into a natural language question and answer pair that includes an initial question and an initial answer. The embodiment translates the initial question into a structured knowledge graph query and then performs an iterative process comprising iterative querying of a knowledge graph and evaluating of corresponding query responses resulting in respective confidence scores. A first iteration of the iterative process comprises querying of the knowledge graph to retrieve a first predicted answer, then determining whether a degree of similarity between the initial answer and the first predicted answer meets a threshold criterion. If not, the first predicted query is altered and used for querying the knowledge graph in a subsequent iteration of the iterative process. The embodiment also generates an assertion correctness score indicative of a degree of confidence that the assertion is factual using the respective confidence scores.