Providing questions to entity groups

A system comprising:

• at least one computing device;
• and
• an entity group interface, implemented by the at least one computing device, that:
• receives a question through a network;
• receives identifiers of a plurality of entity groups through the network, wherein each entity group comprises one or more entities and each entity group is associated with a cost, wherein each cost comprises one or more of a networking bandwidth cost and a computer processing cost, wherein each entity comprises a computer program;
• estimates a bias for each entity group of the plurality of entity groups based on a difference between a first most frequently provided answer to the question from the entities of the entity group and a second most frequently provided answer to the question from the entities of the entity group;
• determines a subset of entity groups from the plurality of entity groups, wherein at least one entity in each entity group of the subset of entity groups provides an answer to the received question with a confidence value that is greater than a first confidence threshold;
• generates an index value for each entity group in the determined subset of entity groups based on the cost associated with each entity group in the subset of entity groups and the estimated bias associated with each entity group in the subset of entity groups;
• and
• determines an entity group from the subset of entity groups based on the index values, wherein at least one entity in the entity group provides an answer to the received question with a confidence value that is greater than a second confidence threshold, wherein the second confidence threshold is greater than the first confidence threshold.

A system comprising:

• at least one computing device;
• and
• an entity group interface, implemented by the at least one computing device, that:
• receives identifiers of a plurality of entity groups through a network, wherein each entity group comprises one or more entities and each entity group is associated with a cost, wherein each cost comprises one or more of a networking bandwidth cost and a computer processing cost, wherein each entity comprises a computer program;
• estimates a bias for each entity group of the plurality of entity groups based on a difference between a first most frequently provided answer to a received question from the entities of the entity group and a second most frequently provided answer to the received question from the entities of the entity group;
• determines a subset of entity groups from the plurality of entity groups whose entity groups each have at least one entity that provides an answer to the received question with a determined confidence value that is greater than a first confidence threshold by, for each entity group of the plurality of entity groups:
• selecting an entity from the entity group;
• asking the selected entity the received question;
• receiving an answer from the selected entity;
• determining the confidence value for the received answer based on the received answer and a plurality of previously received answers;
• determining if the determined confidence value is greater than the first confidence threshold;
• and
• if so, adding the entity group to the determined subset of entity groups;
• generates an index value for each entity group in the subset of entity groups based on the cost associated with each entity group in the subset of entity groups and the estimated bias associated with each entity group in the subset of entity groups;
• determines an entity group from the subset of entity groups based on the index values, wherein at least one entity in the entity group provides an answer to the received question with a determined confidence value that is greater than a second confidence threshold, and further wherein the second confidence threshold is greater than the first confidence threshold;
• and
• provides the answer with the determined confidence value that is greater than the second confidence threshold from the determined entity group from the subset of entity groups through the network.

A system comprising:

• at least one computing device;
• and an entity group interface, implemented by the at least one computing device, that:
• receives a question through a network;
• receives identifiers of a plurality of entity groups through the network, wherein each entity group comprises one or more entities and each entity is associated with one or more answers for the question, each entity group is associated with a cost, each cost comprises one or more of a networking bandwidth cost and a computer processing cost, and each entity comprises a computer program;
• estimates a bias for each entity group of the plurality of entity groups;
• determines a subset of entity groups from the plurality of entity groups, wherein at least one entity in each entity group of the subset of entity groups provides an answer to the received question with a confidence value that is greater than a first confidence threshold;
• generates an index value for each entity group in the subset of entity groups based on the cost associated with each entity group in the subset of entity groups and the estimated bias associated with each entity group in the subset of entity groups;
• determines an entity group from the subset of entity groups based on a second threshold and the index values, wherein at least one entity in the entity group provides an answer to the received question with a confidence value that is greater than a second confidence threshold, wherein the second confidence threshold is greater than the first confidence threshold;
• and
• provides the one or more answers associated with the one or more entitles of the determined entity group from the subset of entity groups through the network.