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Re: RDF, the "semantic web",and the nadir of AI (was RE: Realistic propo

• From: Rick JELLIFFE <ricko@g...>
• To: Robin Berjon <robin@k...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 21:50:34 +0800

Robin Berjon wrote:
> 
> At 03:40 18/10/2000 -0400, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
> >> I don't know whether or not the semantic web will
> >> succeed, but the idea does make some sense.
> >
> >Please explain it to us all... I've never really grokked it,
> >and I used to work in AI...
> 
> I'm not sure it *has* to be looked at from an AI perspective.  

If we can give TBL the benefit of the doubt, I think it is possible that
the "semantic web" means--at least--something.  At a minimum, surely it
is a web of atoms of information each component of which can be
universally addressed, and where the arcs between each node (or the node
itself) has some label, and that if one can trace back along these arcs
(including schemas to bring the labels into the web too) to well-known
datums (IYKWIM) then one can do more or less useful things with that
web. 

This is not AI, this is just a big fat database. Is dog has a collar; a
dog is an animal; an animal can have a name; a dog can have a collar, a
collar can have a name tag; a nametag can have a name: start from the
dog and do a search of everything connected to it to try to find the
name.  AI comes into the heuristics in navigating around a database of
information.

The question is how much the technology we are building actually
promotes that: an XML Schema is not "semantic" in the kind of sense
above--it gives information for types not meanings or properties. This
is one objection to identifying namespaces and schemas too much: it
actively prevents a semantic web (in that sense.)

Cheers
Rick

• Follow-Ups:
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    • From: Jonathan Borden <jborden@m...>
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• References:
  • RE: RDF, the "semantic web", and the nadir of AI (was RE: Realistic proposals to the W3C?)
    • From: Robin Berjon <robin@k...>

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