The Semantic Web Is it “The Web guy’s shortcut to A.I.”? Or more? Or less?

The Semantic Web for Dummies (like me) XML Customized tags, like: Nena +RDF Relations, in triples, like: (Nena) (is_dog_of) (Kimiko/Stefan) +Ontologies Hierarchies of concepts, like mammal -> canine -> Cotton de Tulear -> Nena +Inference rules Like: If (person) (owns) (dog), then (person) (cares_for) (dog) =Semantic Web!

Semantic Web and Commonsense Reasoning QueryWeb Add commonsense here! Cyc, Openmind, etc. QueryWeb Add commonsense here! Semantic Web

Interesting quotes “Knowledge representation (…) is clearly a good idea, and some very nice demonstrations exist, but it has not yet changed the world.” (SciAm) Meaning: Of course the Semantic Web will do that. Will it?

Interesting quotes, cont. “The Semantic Web will break out of the virtual realm and extend into our our physical world.” (SciAm) Virtual reality will take over physical reality? (Why does that remind me of something very old?)

Interesting quotes, cont. “URIs can point to anything, including physical entities (…)” (SciAm) Is a unique ID for people socially acceptable? Where does that end? Would we like that each atom of our universe has a URI?

Interesting quotes, cont. “The Semantic Web can assist the evolution of human knowledge as a whole.” (SciAm) How so? Do you buy it?

Summary: The 6 Principles Everything can be identified by URIs Resources and links can have types Partial information is tolerated There is no need for absolute truth Evolution is supported Minimalist design