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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XML/RDF
 By the way. Mike Champion wrote: >... > >>To me, it is just the union of >>the localized domains with links between them where possible. If there >>is value in the localized domains, why would the integration of them >>into a Web of links be problematic? > > > Nothing that I know of offhand. Can it cope with inconsistencY > of assertions? "Semantic Web researchers, in contrast, accept that paradoxes and unanswerable questions are a price that must be paid to achieve versatility. We make the language for the rules as expressive as needed to allow the Web to reason as widely as desired. This philosophy is similar to that of the conventional Web: early in the Web's development, detractors pointed out that it could never be a well-organized library; without a central database and tree structure, one would never be sure of finding everything." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21&pageNumber=3&catID=2 > Can it actually work without an > "ontology authority" to maintain trust and consistency across domains? "Of course, this is not the end of the story, because two databases may use different identifiers for what is in fact the same concept, such as zip code. A program that wants to compare or combine information across the two databases has to know that these two terms are being used to mean the same thing. Ideally, the program must have a way to discover such common meanings for whatever databases it encounters. A solution to this problem is provided by the third basic component of the Semantic Web, collections of information called ontologies." "An important facet of agents' functioning will be the exchange of "proofs" written in the Semantic Web's unifying language (the language that expresses logical inferences made using rules and information such as those specified by ontologies). For example, suppose Ms. Cook's contact information has been located by an online service, and to your great surprise it places her in Johannesburg. Naturally, you want to check this, so your computer asks the service for a proof of its answer, which it promptly provides by translating its internal reasoning into the Semantic Web's unifying language. An inference engine in your computer readily verifies that this Ms. Cook indeed matches the one you were seeking, and it can show you the relevant Web pages if you still have doubts." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21&pageNumber=5&catID=2 > Will the spammers, pornographers, and assorted slimeballs co-opt it > for their purposes? "Another vital feature will be digital signatures, which are encrypted blocks of data that computers and agents can use to verify that the attached information has been provided by a specific trusted source. You want to be quite sure that a statement sent to your accounting program that you owe money to an online retailer is not a forgery generated by the computer-savvy teenager next door. Agents should be skeptical of assertions that they read on the Semantic Web until they have checked the sources of information. (We wish more people would learn to do this on the Web as it is!) " http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21&pageNumber=6&catID=2 > ... Can it work well enough to evolve if only partially > implemented (like the Web) or does its value only kick in only when > everyone implements it (see http://www.shirky.com/writings/evolve.html)? "Human endeavor is caught in an eternal tension between the effectiveness of small groups acting independently and the need to mesh with the wider community. A small group can innovate rapidly and efficiently, but this produces a subculture whose concepts are not understood by others. Coordinating actions across a large group, however, is painfully slow and takes an enormous amount of communication. The world works across the spectrum between these extremes, with a tendency to start small—from the personal idea—and move toward a wider understanding over time." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21&pageNumber=7&catID=2 It is quite possible that the Semantic Web technologies will be found to have some fatal flaw, but it won't because the inventors neglected to consider obvious questions like these. Paul Prescod 
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