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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: RE: Semantic Web
 The Semantic Web will subvert itself, Mike. It becomes a Golem: power to make things happen plus the authority. Not new news. This has been inevitable ever since the System ID was merged into the Public ID in the form of a URI. All that has held it back was myopia that insisted identification and classification could be named by the same string. It will get messier. That is why Joshua's example of USENET is interesting. A global ontology. One assumes the users have to police it themselves. Is that more reliable? As to what says what about whom, why is that more reliable? The Republicans used that technique very successfully to pound a sitting president. So is that more reliable? Not really. It is politically correct, that is, relies not on a "web of trust" but a hierarchy of authority that one trusts. Keep autopoiesis in mind. Feedback mediated systems remain stable only as long as either they can control the environment completely, or can adapt either the environment or their own features to changes. That is why intelligent systems are ranked by the number of sign systems they can handle competently including the ability to learn or invent new ones. It is that old "winners write the history" problem. That is how we forge our own chains. len -----Original Message----- From: Mike Champion [mailto:mc@x...] 7/30/2002 1:11:06 PM, "Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@m...> wrote: >Google is the semantic web. > > http://ftrain.com/google_takes_all.html > > I find this article both interesting, because it does sketch out a plausible scenario for the SW ... but infuriating because it blithely assumes that Google pays attention to metadata. The key to Google's success is that ignores what a page says it is about (beyond the words themselves, of course) and uses "observational metadata" based on what others say about it. So, what's in it for Google to start caring about "metacrap" http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm ? I can believe that it will create its own "observational ontologies" based on higher level patterns of who says what about whom, but I doubt if they will start believing self-descriptions anytime soon. The other thing I both liked and disliked about the ftrain article was its treatment of how various vermin (dictators, criminals, the direct marketing industry) could subvert it for their own purposes. Compelling examples, but why are they at the end as an afterthought? These clowns are the reason that Google ignores metadata in the first place. In order for Google to take metadata seriously, the roaches will have to hide out of sight until the semantic web is established, and then come out of the woodwork and subvert it. The trouble is, the spammers, pornographers, scam artists, etc. are on the bleeding edge of e-business (and reputedly the only ones making money). They're most likely to be early adopters, webs of trust notwithstanding. Look what Enron did with "webs of trust" :~( 
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